Interstitial Spaces
by bsmart
Summary: <html><head></head>Mass Effect 2 with a strong focus on the characters rather than shooting things. All the little conversations that happened between missions, or should have. Shepard/Liara/Kelly, eventually.</html>
1. Chapter 1: Sweet Dreams

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

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><p>Chapter 1: Sweet Dreams<p>

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><p>"What happened on Torfan?"<p>

"Ugh," she replied letting her head fall back to rest on the top of the couch.

"Well?" she pushed.

She covered her eyes with her hand, rubbing her temples as she tried to block out the overhead lights. "Did you see the news stories afterward?"

"I think everyone did."

"Well that's what happened, sort of," she trailed off.

Again she probed, "Sort of?"

"This is why I don't go to shrinks," the raven haired woman said in a huff.

"Commander..."

"Fine," she sighed in resignation. "It was towards the end of the Skyllian Blitz. The Alliance brass was finally convinced it wasn't a distraction by the Batarian government so they could sucker punch us elsewhere and sent in the fleet." She shifted on the couch and stared up at the stars rushing by through her skylight. As she continued her voice was flat and monotone, "I'd been on Elysium with my unit, 2nd Company, 37th Heavy Recon Battalion. Spec Ops troopers all of us. We'd been about the only troops on Elysium when the slavers hit. We'd held them off and trounced them so when the Fleet arrived they didn't have much to do but sweep their space support out of the sky. They sent down a battalion of line grunts to relieve us and scooped up us. We'd gotten intel on one of the slaver's big staging bases and they wanted us to hit it. Most of their native marine battalions were tied up cleaning up the last of the Blitz and securing the colonies so they wanted the two thirty seven to hit the ground early, scout the slaver base, and get the intel so when they got together a bigger force we could come on and curb stomp those fucking Batarian bastards. At least that was what the mission was supposed to be."

The redhead shifted her data pad in her hand, quitely bringing up a transcript of the action the Commander was describing to compare her words against. "It didn't go as planned?"

She chuckled darkly, "It never does. This wasn't one of their bases, it was THE base and there wasn't going to be any follow on assault by Alliance marines. When we arrived they were well on their way to loading up and pulling out. They knew their cover was blown and they weren't sticking around no matter how well set up their base was."

"News reports all said it was a very impressive fortress."

"Oh it was, but if they'd stayed they'd have had been facing Alliance marines backed up by Alliance warships. Sure, it was impressive if all you had to attack it was ground troops and maybe some APCs but we'd have brought cruisers and dreadnoughts. A few rounds from a dreadnought's main guns and there wouldn't have been a base to speak of," she finished with a wan smile.

"So?" she prompted, trying to remain clam and detached. For two years she'd read the Commander's dossier. It had been stuffed to the brim with everything known, thought to be known, and simply assumed about the Commander. It had been almost completely devoid of any real first hand accounts however. The Commander's reports had always been short, to the point, and carried nothing but facts.

"Captain Kyle, he was still a captain then. He didn't get his promotion until after this." She snorted. "His promotion is part of why he lost it, couldn't stand the thought of gaining from the death's of so many of his men. Even if he had jack shit to do with it."

"You had to kill Major Kyle later didn't you?" she said with concern.

She sighed. "Yeah, I did. He went off the deep end with guilt. Latched onto biotics and tried to make things better for them. He eventually made himself into some kind of messiah figure and started up some kind of commune. No big deal, except that when some Alliance investigators dropped by he had them killed. Admiral Hackett asked me to have a look into it since I was in Kyle's old command. I couldn't talk him down, he was totally sold as his biotic's messiah. Convinced himself they were children and would die without him. He attacked us, we put him down." She shook her head slowly, her eyes closed as she relived the memory of their confrontation.

"I'm sorry."

"So was I. He didn't deserve what happened to him. Anyway, he called me and the other lieutenant's together. I was fresh out of the academy back then. Right out of basic they'd tagged me to go to N7 school. I did, and excelled. Someone there thought they say officer material and right out of N7 boot they sent me to the Academy. Back then during the colonial boom the Alliance was desperate to put bodies in uniforms. No way I'd have been able to make it as far and fast as I did back then now. Hell, I'd only gotten rid of my butter bars and made first lieutenant on the ship pulling us out of Elysium. Pinned them to me right before the Medal of Valor."

"You got a medal for Elysium correct?"

"Yeah, a Medal of Valor. Probably the only thing that allowed them to shield me from the media later." The Commander absently rubbed her tight black uniform top over her left breast as she turned towards her office. Her work space was half a level up and behind them but her eyes stared through it, towards the small medal case she kept there.

"But Captain Kyle had called you all together..." she prompted to get the story moving again.

The Commander shook her head lightly and refocused. She stared back across the compartment at the fish tank that dominated the port wall. "Right, sorry. Yeah, he called us together to talk it over. Alliance command said it would be a solid week before they could scrape together the troops to assault the base and take it. We wanted intel not a crater so Alliance command was intent on taking that base and not just having a dreadnaught hose it from orbit. We figured they'd finish pulling out in three days tops. Alliance brass said to handle it as we saw fit." Again the dark chuckle. "Gotta love the way people like that pass the buck. They just say handle it so later on they can cover their own asses by either claiming credit if you succeed or dumping full responsibility on you if you don't."

"Is there any other possible explanation? Could they just feel that you have a better understanding of what's going on on the ground and have faith in you to decide what to do?" she asked hopefully, not completely ready to cast the actions of others in so negative a light if a plausible explanation might exist.

She let out a deep drawn out sigh. This pixie-ish little shrink was far too astute for her liking. "If it came from someone like Admiral Hackett with fifth fleet maybe. These guys, they just didn't have the stones to make the tough call."

"And you do?"

The Commander flinched. "Ouch. In this case it was Captain Kyle who did. He knew that if we didn't move now the slavers would not only get away, but they'd take their records with them and likely level the base to boot. They'd keep their infrastructure intact and we wouldn't know anything more about the Blitz. We'd all been on Elysium, we knew what was at stake if they got away so the Captain put together a plan and we executed it," she said matter of factly.

"What was the plan?"

"Put the screws to them. We worked on infiltrating their compound. Mostly we were rigging everything we could to blow. The idea was to cut off their escape route, mostly, so they couldn't run, then clean them out. In the middle of the night we raided half a dozen transports. Made sure nothing important was on them, either slaves or information, then we rigged them to blow," she said casually. She reached for a small cup of water on the coffee table and took a sip.

"A half dozen transports in a night?" The reports from Torfan said as much but the dismissive way the Commander said it was surprising. She expected more emotion out of her.

"After Elysium we still had a hundred and eight effectives in the company. A hundred and eight N7 troopers can do a lot of damage," she said with no small amount of pride. "Anyway, we rigged those transports to blow and captured a seventh. When the morning came their larger day crews came out to keep loading the transports. We blew them up just as they got close and realized something wasn't right. Probably killed a good two hundred of them right there," she said with a smirk.

"Why didn't you destroy the seventh?"

"A relief valve. We wanted them to think there was still hope they might get off planet, hope they could still get away. We left two squads on that transport to guard it and in the confusion of the exploding transports the rest of us hit the fortress. They hadn't realized they were in danger but still managed to get some of the smaller doors shut tight on us. We used breaching charges to blow open the access ways and found our first surprise. There weren't a few hundred slavers on this rock, there were a few thousand. We breached the fortress and immediately were hit with wave after wave of slavers. Batarians stacked up ten deep. The only thing that kept us from being completely mobbed were the narrow corridors of the fortress. They had to come at us in small teams but it didn't matter. That first half hour was some of the most brutal fighting I've ever experienced."

"Worse than Saren?" she nudged.

"Yeah, worse," she said as her expression revereted back to a thousand yard starye. "Against Saren and the geth we were advancing, pushing forward. There was always wiggle room. On Torfan there was only cold stone at my back and endless waves of Batarians coming at me. It wasn't like there was time or room for disciplined accurate fire. When you encountered someone you were almost touching. You didn't have time to aim you just got the weapon in the general direction and held down the trigger and prayed you were faster than the other guy," she shivered. "It's kind of amazing how few casualties we took, N7 hard armor is pretty good stuff. Not quite good enough for the captain though. He got caught in a cross fire, stripped his shields and a Batarian put a shotgun in his back and pulled the trigger. First platoon managed to extract him but their lieutenant ate a frag," she said tonelessly.

"And that put you in command."

"Yeah, Kyle was combat ineffective, we had to extract him back to the transport and that wasn't easy. We'd captured the east entrance to the fortress, the transport was on the north. Getting him to that transport put the extraction under a lot of fire. They got him back though. Saved his life so I could end it a few years on down the line," she said quietly. "The lieutenant in charge of the transport's defense was a butter-bars who'd joined us after Elysium. He was our 'reinforcement,'" she spat. "I outranked him by maybe six months and one brevet promotion but that made me the commander. Elysium wasn't that bad. I mean it was bad, real bad, but the captain was in charge and I was third in line to take over from him. The shit hit the fan on Elysium and it was tough but all I was ever responsible for was my platoon and I had a great sergeant backing me up. Suddenly I found myself in charge of a hundred troopers. We were assaulting a heavily defended compound full of thousands of pissed off slavers and we'd managed to position ourselves right between them and their only means of escape. For someone still looking forward to the one year anniversary of their graduation from the academy it was a bit overwhelming." She put her foot up on the coffee table and pushed against it trying to make more leg room for herself. Like most furniture on a starship it was bolted down though.

"But you got it together and took command?"

The Commander dropped her foot back to the floor. "I did, after a five second panic attack that I let myself have." She looked over at the shocked expression on her crewman's face. "What, I'm not allow to freak out a little? I wasn't always some big damn hero. Right then I was a scared shitless twenty three year old kid with a hundred people depending on me and the odds so stacked against me it was just about comical," she snorted. "You try not freaking out in that situation." She shook her head and took another sip of water. "I knew the plan though, and I knew the layout of the base. I remembered Elysium, the death, the screaming. People who only wanted a better life now fighting for their and their families against heartless bastards who wanted to treat them as cattle. Dead bodies in the street, burning because the slavers made examples of them for resisting. Transports lifting off with their holds full of slaves because we weren't fast enough. Peaceful people dying or being enslaved by greedy monsters across dozens of worlds. It's at that point that my five seconds were up. I knew what I had to do. It had to end here, the people responsible for the Blitz had to be brought to justice. Their ability to do it had to be stripped away. Not one of those Batarians deserved to leave this planet alive. They had to be stopped. That was the moment I remembered what one of my academy instructors told me. 'You're not always going to bring them all home. Someday you won't have overwhelming superiority. You won't be able to call in artillery, airstrikes, armor, or orbital bombardment. You'll be on a mission where the stakes are too high to accept defeat. You'll be facing the prospect that any order you give will get men, your men killed. At that point you have to remember, you are an officer. This is your job. Casualties are acceptable, failure is not.'" She finished the words harshly, the muscles in her body tightening at the memory of them and what it meant for her.

"Three quarters of the troops on Torfan died. Was that acceptable?" She asked. To her it might make some sense rationally, the comparative handful of troops for many times their number in slavers and countless thousands saved from lives of slavery in the future. It made sense in a clinical detached sort of way but she couldn't fathom giving orders like that.

Hot anger flashed across her features before fading away slowly. "The mission was accomplished. We took the fortress and stopped the slavers. We cut the heart out of their entire operation. After Torfan there wasn't a single slaver raid on any human colony in the Verge for two years." She breathed deeply from her nose trying to calm herself. "If you just go off the news vids you'd think I just ordered my troops to march single file into the Batarian's guns and didn't stop until they were all dead. The truth was we fought hard through that entire compound. We fought, and fought, and fought until we couldn't go any further then we got our shit together, hit the stims again, and kept pushing. We didn't do anything stupid, we fought a close combat action for nineteen hours straight before making it to the final citadel." Her balled up fist pounded her thigh.

"The military agrees with you. Three years later Torfan became one of the case studies in assaulting a fortified position and your actions have been scrutinized by every class of cadets since. Based off our information the instructors have been using it as an example of persevering in spite of the odds."

"Well... I did the best I could. It wasn't what we trained for. There was no 'securing' anything. We were outnumbered something like thirty to one. The only territory we could control was the small bit of the compound we were in. We'd fight through a section only to start taking fire from it again a few minutes later as they filled in behind us. It was brutal. If we stayed put they'd overwhelm us. If we moved we'd expose ourselves," she shook her head slowly before putting her elbows on her knees and leaning forward to stare at the coffee table, not really seeing it all all, just staring through it like she could see back in time.

"At the end of the battle you only took eleven prisoners out of a garrison of twenty one hundred slavers. The news reports had helmet cam footage of you executing prisoners personally." She did the best she could to keep the distaste from her mouth. That was part of the Commander's dossier she didn't care for. It didn't match the heroic figure so much of the rest of it painted.

"That, yeah. I did. What of it?" she asked more defensively than she had intended. "No one has yet explained to me how we were supposed to take prisoners. The Batarians certainly weren't. We needed every rifle firing, not covering some Batarian filth too gutless to do the galaxy a favor and just die. We had to keep moving, we couldn't be dragging prisoners along. We'd have had to turn them loose, and with their only route off planet blocked they'd just grab a gun and come back at us."

The redhead looked down at her pad and said solemly, "There were two vids in particular that played. One had a line of prisoners kneeling in a room and your men asking what to do with them. You took your pistol and shot each one of them in turn before telling your men you weren't taking prisoners..."

"And in the second I was interrogating some. Yeah, I know the vids," she replied tersely. "I shot that first batch so it would be me alone doing it. It's one thing to claim to have accidentally shot a guy trying to surrender, which happens more than most people will admit. It's another to shoot an unarmed guy on his knees. I did it so that at the end of the day I'd get court martialed and not them." She paused to collect her breath before continuing a little less snippily, "In the second one, they always leave off the context. We'd cleared the compound and the last hundred or so slavers were holed up in the central keep. Any evidence on the causes of the Blitz were inside with them. The longer we took the higher the chance they'd wipe all that info and that couldn't happen. In spite of ourselves we captured the command squad of the guys trying to defend the citadel. They'd gotten locked outside by their mates," she said with a wicked smile. "They had some basic insignia and I knew who was in charge. At that point we were down to nineteen effectives, including me. We were all injured to varying degrees but still mobile. We were out of heavy ordnance that would have let us breach the tower. We needed the access codes to open the doors and the garrison commander had them. So I decided to get them out of him. There were a pair of regular troopers there and I knew they wouldn't have the codes so as I walked up to the group of them I pulled my pistol and shot the batarian fucks right through their face," she said with a touch of self satisfaction.

"They weren't batarians though," she said with concern. "Those first two were a human and a turian. Not all the slavers were batarians."

The Commander blinked, "...yeah, you're right. My memory's fuzzy. Most of them were batarians, not all. Don't know why that's important."

"Because you said they were batarians, so you shot them," she pressed.

The Commander's demeanor hardened, "I'd shot a lot of batarians that day."

"But those two weren't, in fact thirty percent of them were humans, turians, salarians, even a couple of volus."

"What's your point?" she snapped. "They were slavers, inhuman scum. Fuck'em."

The redhead paused before continuing cautiously, "Alright, what happened after you executed the human and the turian?"

"That left their commander and his two lieutenants. I put the gun to the first lieutenant's face and told him to tell me the codes to open the doors. He said he didn't know, they'd scrambled the lock after they shut it. Since he wasn't any use to me I shot him. I went to the next lieutenant and asked him about the codes. He said he didn't know, but he ratted out his commander that he had an override he'd been trying to use. I shot him," she said flatly. "I moved to the commander and put the gun to his head and demanded he put in the code. He'd started off full of piss and vinegar, calling me everything he could think of. Well, until I started to just shoot his men without a second thought. He puckered up real quick then. By the time I killed his last lieutenant he was sweating bullets, trying to worm away from me. I pressed the gun right between his upper eyes and told him to hit the override. It was funny, the only thing he did was point out that if he did I was going to kill him," she said with the beginnings of a sneer.

"And you replied that of course you were."

She cracked a smile. "Yeah, I did. I didn't end it there though, I told him that it didn't matter, because way down deep in whatever shrunken blackened mess passes for a batarian soul he was just a slaver and a coward. He was going to tell me the codes no matter what in the vain hope that I might just let him live. And he did. Got the door right open," she said with self satisfaction.

"And then you shot him," the young redhead said as that portion of the vid played on her pad.

"Of course I did," she replied plainly.

She nodded and made a note. "Your team managed to finish capturing the citadel and acquired a tremendous amount of information on the Blitz."

"Information that let us round up dozens more small bases and ships. We wiped out slaving operations in the Verge for two years and it still hasn't recovered to the level it once was. Torfan ended the Blitz and secured the Verge and all the human colonies in it," the Commander said defiantly.

"At the cost of eighty three men," she prompted.

"Eighty three troopers killed in action, twenty five wounded, yes I know the numbers. I also know their names, ranks, serial numbers, and next of kin. I remember how they died, where, and why. Do you want the list?" She demanded as her voice rose. "'Butcher-of-fucking-Torfan,' if all you ever saw was the news reports you'd think I personally executed every batarian on that planet then slit my own people's throats for fun," she spat.

"They smeared you?"

"Of course they did. What else would they do?" She barked as she propelled herself up from leaning forward on her knees to slump back into the couch.

"Tell the truth?"

She laughed, loudly and darkly. "We are talking about the news right? The news organizations that are owned lock stock and barrel by the mega-corps? The mega-corps that had pushed and pushed and pushed for decades to expand outwards? That news?" She shook her head in resignation. "The Alliance tried to put the breaks on them by making them fund colonies anytime they wanted to stake a claim to a new world but that didn't slow them down even a little. The mega-corps used their bought and paid for politicians to ensure they got every colonial claim they asked for, never mind that the Alliance navy was screaming their heads off the whole time about how we didn't have the ships or manpower to adequately protect claims as far flung and numerous as the mega-corps wanted. They tried to get new taxes on colonizing companies passed to fund new ships. Obviously that wasn't passed." She sighed, "The news feeds wanted to try and put a happy face on the Blitz. They figured if they did a whole series on 'Heros of the Blitz,' they could distract people from asking why it happened. How we had colonies so poorly protected that a bunch of two bit slavers could attack and actually endanger an entire colony of millions. They wanted to put a shinning smiling face on Elysium so they picked me. After all I'd been there, earned a Medal of Valor, then gone on to Torfan and commanded the company that ended the Blitz. The problem is that when they got to me I told them what I told you. That a bunch of mega-corps got greedy, weren't willing to pay the tab to keep people safe, used their pet politicians to make things go their way and a bunch of innocent people got killed for it and thousands were now in chains in the Terminus being bought and sold like farm animals."

"They didn't appreciate it?" the redhead prompted with a touch of irony.

"Their masters didn't. Unfortunately my bosses had already given them full access to the whole story. They were eager to get someone like me in front of the camera as a recruiting tool and maybe to lobby for a bigger budget."

"Which is how they got the helmet cam footage."

"Exactly. Should never have been released but they schmoozed the right people and got their hands on it by, 'accident.' Accident my ass. By the time they were done I was officially, 'The Butcher of Torfan,' and they'd even managed to make it look like I was killing colonists on Elysium for sport. I think they even alluded to me being responsible for the First Contact war and World Wars three and four. All of which made me one hell of an embarrassment with the brass seeing how they'd not only pinned a Medal of Valor to my chest on Elysium but now Medal of Honor and promoted me to lieutenant commander. They'd just hit me with the two highest medals you can receive in the Alliance along with a promotion while a few of the politicians the mega-corps owned were starting to make noises about war crimes trials. Officially I got a reprimand. Unofficially they made it clear that I was likely never going to go far in the military and a lot of unpleasant, difficult, and thankless jobs likely lied in my future." She finished with a sigh and closed her eyes trying to shut it all out.

"Like this one?" she asked quizzically.

"Exactly like this one," the Commander said in a huff. "But I was just a street rat orphan from Earth. What was I going to do? I'd been picked up in the Phoenix megaplex along with a lot of the rest of my gang. I was stupid and head strong but I was a first offender. The judge couldn't ignore who I was with or what I was doing but he wasn't ready to throw me away for life just yet. He told me I could either join the Alliance military or I could stand trial with my gangmates, as an adult, on charges that could put me in jail until menopause." She chuckled. "You know it's funny, if I'd stuck with that gang I'd likely have wound up doing the shit that I shoot people for now, red sand running, slaving, being an even bigger bitch than I am. Maybe I should find that judge and thank him."

"But you have no sympathy for those that wound up in that life?"

Her face turned hard, "Anyone who's seen it up close can't have any. I saw what happened on Elysium. I know how these animals operate. It's not like slavery from a couple hundred years ago. It's not cheap labor. Slaves just aren't worth it for simple manual labor. Mechs are cheaper to buy, maintain, and more productive. No, you don't get captured by slavers and spend your life picking crops or carrying crates any more." She opened her eyes and captured the redhead's with them. "On Elysium they'd pick families apart. The only men they took were those big and strong enough, or skilled enough, to fight. There are honest to God gladiatorial games some places still. Most of the men they kill though, there's little market for them outside of the gladiatorial games. No, strike that, a few wind up kept as subjects for medical experiments. The kind of experiments that you have to have slaves to use for them because no sane person would ever submit to them and no government would let them happen. They took most of the women but with a preference for the younger ones. After all when it comes to sex slaves the younger the better. They're better looking and will last longer than the old ones. They'd take kids too. Mostly the slightly older ones that can survive without their parents. Anyone too old, or the wrong demographics, or too young... they'd kill. Worked pretty well. Slit the father's throat in front of the wife and kids and they'd lose it. Be too grief struck to stop you from taking them. The lucky ones might have been sold to someone who just raped them on a regular basis. The unlucky ones were likely sold to some alien whore house. The really unlucky ones would spend what little of their lives remained being cut apart on some psycho doctor's table for experiments, or just killed slowly because that go their owner off, or being eaten. So no, I don't have any sympathy for slavers. Every last one of them deserves to be dragged out of hiding and killed, slowly and painfully," she said with a menace that let it be known she'd be happy to be the one doing it.

She broke eye contact to look down at her pad, unnerved by the pure hatred she's seen in her Commander's eyes. "That's... a lot to think about."

"Slavery is a nice catchall term, it's also a nice mask. It lets you imagine that all those women and children that were taken might be off working in some batarian's corn fields picking them instead of what's likely happening to them. I can't stand slavers and I can't stand anyone who works with them." She closed her eyes again and took a long deep calming breath. "My own semi-exile wasn't even all that bad. I got assigned to Fifth fleet, worked for Admiral Hackett. He let me work and do the jobs I was assigned without having someone looking over my shoulder all the time."

"Changing the subject what about Virmi...,"

"No, Kelly, not today."

"Shepard..."

Alyssa Shepard lifted her head off the back of the couch and looked at the little ship's councilor sitting on the other sofa a few feet away. She fixed the young Cerberus operative with a steely glare and repeated herself. "No, not today." She didn't try and run the SR-2 the way she'd run the SR-1, it wasn't an Alliance ship with an Alliance crew but there were moments where she was still the captain and the crew had damn well better fall in line.

"Understood," Kelly said as she gathered a few pads together. Her omnitool beeped at her but she dismissed it. "Thank you for sharing what you did," she said nervously.

Alyssa sighed. Somehow Kelly was managing to look like a whipped puppy, or a toddler being denied their favorite toy. As much as she despised Cerberus and everything it stood for Kelly herself was one of the nicest people she'd ever met, bar none. No matter what her reputation was as a hard ass she still couldn't be mean to Kelly when she earnestly wanted to help. "Torfan is a lot of bad memories, Virmire is almost as bad. That's a lot of depression for one conversation. Ask me about it later alright?"

Kelly perked up a little. Not to the point of being happy but less of a little girl who'd dog Shepard had kicked and more one denied a lollipop until after dinner. "Later then."

Alyssa watched Kelly turn to go and followed her Yeoman's movements, specifically the ones below her belt and above her knees, out the door into the foyer. The way Yeoman Chamber's pants fit across her ass made Alyssa smile a moment before shaking her head violently. "Fuck you Timmy."

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><p>Author's Notes<p>

Contact me at:

1) Welcome to my Mass Effect fic. Why? Because all the cool kids are doing it.

2) The lore-whores out there will quickly hit on a couple issues with Shep's backstory. Deal_with_

3) This chapter is essentially prologue. In game it takes place somewhere just before Horizon. The rest of the fic will proceed chronologically.

4) Expect things to be truncated for the sake of not wanting to write out every damn moment of a video game we've all already played. Deviations from canon are intentional.


	2. Chapter 2: A Good Night's Rest

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

Chapter 2: A Good Night's Rest

"Brain activity is increasing exponentially! She's waking up!"

A male voice, muffled, distant. He was off to her left. He sounded agitated. Who was waking up? Was she? Where was she?

"That's not possible!"

A woman this time. Her hearing was sharper. Now it just sounded like someone had a pillow over here ears instead of trying to listen to a conversation through the water. Neither voice was even a little familiar.

"Well it's happening!"

Neither voice was at all familiar... That thought nagged at her. She should know them. She didn't. That was bad. Bad...the Normandy. The crew. Alyssa's brain roared into overdrive. What had happened to the crew? What had happened to Liara?

"Jesus! Her brain activity just spiked, she's awake!"

Alyssa blinked her eyes, trying to focus them. Above her bright lights bore down into her eyes, blinding her. Everything was muddled. Her brain registered a lack of breathing on her part and she tried to take a deep breath. It only lasted a half second before she gagged on tube down her throat and she began to cough. Into her vision came a woman in white with black hair.

"Calm down Shepard, you're fine. Just calm down," she said tersely. Her eyes didn't linger on Alyssa's but turned accusingly towards someone else, someone she couldn't see.

Alyssa's hand snapped up, or she tried to make it snap up, to grab the woman's wrist. Even the thought of moving was painful, the actual act sent waves of agony up her arm and shoulder but she ignored it. "Crew," she tried to say only to realize there was a tube in her throat getting in the way.

"Adrenaline levels rising, heart rate one twenty and climbing."

"How is she still moving," a male voice exclaimed. "She's got enough in her to put down a Krogan!"

"Well give her another dose!" the woman said over Alyssa. The mystery woman looked back down at her and pleaded, "Relax."

Alyssa focused on squeezing the woman's wrist and was rewarded with a wince. She tried to bring her other hand up to get the tube out of her throat but it refused to respond. She closed her eyes and tried to focus but her arm refused to move. Nearby something metallic clattered to the floor spilling its contents all over.

The man exclaimed, "Shit! She's active! If I give her another dose it may kill her!"

The mystery woman was having none of it. Shepard's senses were sharpening and she could detect the accent in her words. "We've already given her enough to kill her and she's about to break my damn wrist, hit her again!" There was an orange emblem on her chest that seemed important but even as she tried to focus liquid ice flowed through her veins and it made her head swim. Growling she tried to force herself to sit. She needed to get up, be up. She had to find her crew and Liara and these people were trying to prevent that. She felt what must have been IV's or monitors pulling at her skin.

"Are you kidding me?" The man yelped as something fell over.

"Again! Before she fries herself!" The woman said, her eyes suddenly fearful as Alyssa started to sit up. The pain was unimaginable but her body was responding. Doctor Chakwas could fix whatever was wrong with her but she had to get moving.

"We're just doing it for her," the man complained. "We're already risking massive neurological trauma with this much in her!"

"Do it anyways, she can obviously take it!" Again chilled mercury seemed to fill her veins and Alyssa's head swam. She felt her limbs stop responding and she started to fall back to the bed only to be caught by the woman in white. "Just calm down Shepard, we're here to help."

"Holy hell, five doses...," the man said.

"Heart rate down at eighty and falling, brain activity decreasing...," someone said.

The last thing Alyssa saw and heard was the woman in white smiling down at her. "She's alive."

"Shepard! Get up the station is under attack!"

It hurt.

"Shepard! Get! Up!"

God it hurt. It didn't even need to be specific, if you named it then it hurt, a lot.

"I am not going to let you just die on that table Shepard! Get up!"

Even the noise in her ears hurt. Alyssa brought her hand up to her jaw, trying to move it. That hurt too. It wasn't even specific. Dull aches at joints, sharp pain in muscles, tendons groaning as she moved. She coughed as she drew in a deep breath and even that was filled with pain. The uncomfortable scratching rattle as she drew in air, the sharp stab in her gut as she inhaled and again as she exhaled. The cough it all generated was almost exquisite in its agony.

"Breathe Shepard, but get moving. They'll be there any minute and I can't hold them off much longer!"

That voice. She knew it, commanding, terse, a little husky but not so much as to be unpleasant all with an Earth accent she couldn't really place. Something about the voice made her uneasy, but the advice seemed like a good idea. Her drill instructors had once told her that even if the situation was confusing, the right choice wasn't obvious, or you had nothing but shitty options you still picked a course and got your ass moving because the only things that happened when you did nothing were bad things.

She started to sit up and immediately hissed as her movement put more stress on her stomach and another round of coughing commenced. Somewhere in it she managed to push herself up to sitting and the thin paper blanket that had been covering her slid away.

She was no stranger to hospitals. She'd woken up in more than one med bay in her time but this... this was bad. Medi-gel patches covered half of the skin she could see. The thick silvery compresses sticking to her skin and bunching up when she tried to move. The combination of healing agents and anethetics in them left most of her skin numb. The half that wasn't covered in patches probably should have been. Deep angry scars ran across her body, most of them had closed and were now surrounded by fresh pink skin but some were still partially open and angrily red. Direct contact monitoring patches dotted her chest, arms, and legs and she could feel the tug of needles in her arms and neck. She'd never woken up like this.

"What the hell...?"

"Shepard we'll talk about it later but if you don't get moving right now you're dead!" the voice urged her. In the background Shepard heard an explosion and a moment later the bed trembled under her.

'Space,' she thought, 'no ground to dampen the vibrations.'

"Shepard, MOVE!"

It came out like an order and Shepard responded like it was one, her hands coming up to start peeling off the diagnostic sensors even as she turned towards the edge of the bed and let her feet dangle. The insistent tone of the voice had sent a surge of adrenaline through her body and she started to respond. She needed to get moving and she needed to do it now. The pain would have to wait and her body was just going to have to do as it was told. She found the IV's in her arms and pulled them out tossing the needles aside where they hung limply from the machines that had moments ago been pumping her full of medicine. She reached up on the left side of her neck and found the last IV, a central line and she started to pull. A chilling shiver went through her body as what felt like a meter of tubing was pulled out of her veins before it fell to the bed.

"That's good Shepard, now you have to get out of the operating theater and into the scrub room. There'll be an emergency locker in there. You have to get to it."

She nodded her ascent. After all there must be cameras in here if the voice knew she was making progress. Alyssa tentatively pushed herself off the edge of the bed. The thin sheet that covered her fell away leaving her sitting there naked in the cold air. The adrenaline in her veins was making it easier to ignore the pain but she knew this would hurt, and it did.

The only way to describe the agony was as if she'd never worked out in her life and then done a triathlon, twice. Her joints ached as they took her weight, her muscles sent lances of pure agony right into her brain behind her eyes and even her sense of balance betrayed her threatening to dump her on her ass. She momentarily wondered how long she'd been out of it and what had happened that had put her in this hospital. Then she remembered the patches covering her chest and decided that maybe not knowing wasn't such a bad idea.

"It's fifteen meters to the scrub in room Shepard, lets go," the voice urged.

"Easy for you to say," she croaked.

For a few moments Shepard only heard heavy breathing through the comms... then, softly, almost conciliatory, "I suppose it is."

Fifteen meters was a distance she normally could have crossed in seconds but now, each step was pure unadulterated pain. She had to lean on her bed and then any hospital equipment she could find just to stay upright. The pain was almost unbearable, until she remembered something one of her drill instructors had told her. 'Pain is your body's way of telling you that you're not dead, but you will be soon if you don't do something right now.' By the time she'd made it through the litter of machinery that surrounded her bed she still had a solid ten meters to go. What was with this hospital. She'd been in many before but never one like this. Her bed was in the center of the room surrounded by a gaggle of machinery but all it only resembled and operating room for about five meters out from her bed. The rest of the room was full of working tables cluttered with all kinds of machinery and medicines. Desks were all over, most with their work stations still on. This couldn't be a military hospital, it was too neat, too perfect, too new, and most of all it was just too big. The SR-1 managed to fit in three beds in not even a tenth of the space.

She frowned, the SR-1, the Normandy. Something had happened. Something that had put her here.

"You're doing good Shepard, use the cart in front of you to support you to the scrub room."

Alyssa glanced down at the cart. It was covered in medical instruments of which Shepard could identify none, but it had wheels, and when she leaned on it the thing didn't go zipping off. It would do indeed.

The scrub room was exactly what it sounded like, lockers and hangers for outside clothes, piles of scrubs for doctors to put on, and a line of sinks looking out a window into her operating theater. The odd one out was the large locker near the door. Jet black with red stripes horizontally on the middle, a bright red light shone next to the handle.

"That's the emergency locker, I've manged to get it open. Put on the armor and get a gun. I can't hold them off for long Shepard, some of them are headed your way."

Alyssa nodded, not trusting her voice to not send her into a coughing fit if she spoke. The locker opened up easy enough and inside was a non-descript hardsuit, a pistol, a sub machine gun, and a shotgun. The hardsuit made her sigh in relief and with relish she began to put it on. The thick chest plate was a dead weight on her shoulders that almost finished her but she quickly squirmed into the legs of the suit ignoring the way the squishy lining tugged at her medi-gel patches. It didn't fit quite right but once it was interfaced with the chest piece she felt the suit start to adjust to her frame. Thankfully whoever had set up the emergency locker was smart enough to get an adjustable hardsuit. Most were sized carefully, and her old N7 armor had been custom fit exactly to her body. As a suit for general use this one had been equipped with joints and segments that could expand or contract to a degree depending on who put it on. It wasn't as good as a properly fit up suit, but it would do. The suit's actuators powered up and Shepard felt the legs start to take the weight of her body and she sighed in relief. The rest of the armor went on quickly and she tolerated it as the suit pulled and tugged at her skin until it was happy with the fit. Alyssa brought up her omni-tool and turned the suit's actuators up to support more of her weight.

"Alright Shepard, you need to get moving. A few security mechs have managed to squeak through. You don't want to get caught in here with them."

Alyssa nodded slowly. Her sense of balance was still off but the tiny movement didn't leave her reeling, just slightly queasy. She reached in and grabbed the pistol out of the locker. It was a thoroughly nondescript affair. Simple, serviceable, it was the kind of weapon you expected to find stuffed in an emergency locker on the off chance of a rainy day where someone... assaulted a hospital. That thought bothered Shepard, who would attack a hospital station? She pushed the thought back down as she flipped the pistol's power on and groaned at what she found. The pistol was a disposable heat sink using model.

Heat was the biggest problem mass accelerator weapons had. Their eezo power sources and just the act of accelerating rounds to a significant percentage of the speed of light created a lot of heat. People had been looking for the best way to deal with that for a long time. Most militaries stuck with fixed internal heatsinks. Accepting the cooldown periods in exchange for not having to ship crate after crate of heat sinks around all the time. The disposable heat sink concept was something that had cropped up with the civies from time but never really caught on. Fire discipline was more important than rate of fire.

Alyssa blinked in surprise when a heads up hologram appeared before her with the weapon's heat capacity, extra sinks, and various other little tidbits of information sprang up, including a map of the local area. She snorted, they went cheap on the weapons but sprang for a HUD in the armor. Still, it was useful. She powered up the submachine gun and brought it up into her line of sight, sure enough the HUD tracked the projected impact point of the weapon.

She quickly stowed the shotgun and pistol but kept the submachine gun at the ready. The scrub room's doors had large windows in them and a quick check showed the hallway outside to be clear. Staying low and ignoring the pain that caused her abdominals she left the scrub room behind. Her HUD map showed a few small rooms off the hallway but nothing major. She checked each quickly before moving past but she found nothing but specialized medical equipment rooms, various diagnostic scanners speciality treatment devices, but no one to use them. Everything was bright, clean, and shiny. Like it had just been taken out of the box and polished. She could smell the disinfectant and floor polish everywhere.

She'd woken up in an empty operating room, hooked up to all kinds of IV's and monitors. There was a locker with a hard suit and firearms in the scrub room, and now she was walking down a hallway full of incredibly expensive hospital equipment that no one ever seemed to have used. 'I'm either dreaming or in the start of a really bad movie,' she thought as she reached the end of the hallway and crouched behind the double doors.

She rose up enough to peek through the door's windows and she didn't like what she saw. The room beyond looked like some kind of reception/waiting area complete with generic gray furniture. The far wall was one large window looking out onto space and other parts of whatever station she was on. The biggest concern was that unidentifiable bits and pieces of station were floating past that window as well along with the occasional body. Who ever was attacking didn't seem too concerned with taking the station in one piece and that was not giving her a warm fuzzy feeling.

She reached for the center of the door but no holographic lock appeared and a quick shove on the door didn't produce one either. 'Probably to keep family from wandering into an operating theater.' She hunted for an alternate control panel but found nothing.

"Sorry, was keeping it locked and disabled till you got moving." A red hologram appeared over the center of the door then turned green right before the doors slid away. "Keep moving Shepard, you need to get out of the medical wing as quick... as yo..an. Mechssss...osing in... ur position..." and then the voice faded to static.

"Hello?" Alyssa croaked but she got no reply. "Shit."

Keeping her submachine gun ahead of her Alyssa walked into the room, scanning it quickly. Aside from a little knocked over furniture there was nothing worth noticing aside from a wide staircase leading to the only apparent exit from the room. She was starting to make for it when the door snapped open with a hiss and hard mechanical feet stomped into the room.

"Target acquired," the spindly security droid said in it's buzzing monotone.

Alyssa sighed to herself as her opinion of the security of the facility dropped. SecDroids were useful for a few things, but real security wasn't one of them. While their aim was good their ability to respond to strange situations wasn't. Raising her submachine gun she casually placed her aim point on the machine's upper chest and pulled the trigger sending off five shots in rapid succession...

...into the wall over the mech's head.

The fact that the droid was still up and moving was so unbelievable as to leave Alyssa standing there, stunned into immobility as the droid raised it's pistol and opened fire. Only when the first of the droid's rounds bounced off her kinetic barriers did her instincts kick in as she dove behind an upturned table breaking the mech's line of sight and causing it to lose it's lock on her.

"Target lost, pursing," it stated to no one as Alyssa looked the submachine gun over again. Except as her body automatically went through the process of making sure the weapon was in good working order her mind was reeling from the realization that she'd missed. A humanoid sized target not even ten meters away, in the open, and she'd missed with every single round in a five round burst. She tried to recall the last time she'd missed such an easy shot and was completely at a loss. 'What the hell happened,' she asked herself as the sharp steps of the droid closed in. Shooting was automatic to her, something she gave as much thought to as most people gave to breathing or walking, it had been since basic. Missing such an easy target just would not process with her. Conscious thought wasn't really required to eliminate targets for her, she just thought about it and her muscle memory would take over the rest. Except it hadn't, and the mech was getting closer.

A sideways glance at her shield indicator showed them to be recharging from the mech's salvo as Alyssa rolled from cover enough to see the mech. It was still woodenly pointing it's pistol where she had left it's sight. As stupid as it seemed to her with the thing only five meters away Alyssa took the time to line up the mech's center of mass with the iron sights and holographic aim point before pulling the trigger.

This time when the submachine gun snapped at the target she was rewarded with the sight of her rounds punching into the mech's side. It tried to turn to bring it's gun to bear on her but one of her rounds found it's power core and the mech flopped over, dead.

It could have been the hardsuit, or the gun that had made her miss the first time but hitting it like that the second confirmed what she already knew. It had been her and only her that had missed it. A humanoid target not ten meters away and she'd missed it with the entire burst. Drugs, maybe, or being out of it for a while but she'd spent weeks in the hospital before with little effect on her ability to shoot once she was back on her feet. This was like, she'd never touched a gun before.

Her revere was broken by more metallic foot steps and another mech appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Target Acquir...," it began before Alyssa took aim and opened fire. Some of the burst missed the mech but at least two shots hit the head and staggered it keeping it off balance long enough for the second burst to put it down.

"Sloppy," she said to herself as she moved towards the stairs. She couldn't hear any more mechs coming but the room offered no real cover so leaving it immediately was imperative. Besides, nothing in here was getting her anywhere.

The door at the top of the stairs was active and when she approached it slid open. The corridor after it was a sterile silver and gray but at a good three or four meters high and three wide it was far too big. "Definitely not military," she murmured. Even on Arcturus the corridors were small and tight, minimizing wasted space and the associated wasted energy that went along with it. Whoever had designed this station hadn't been worried about that. More doors led off the corridor but of the few who's haptic interfaces were active almost all showed locked and remained so when she tried them. The lone door with a green interface beckoned and she went for it. More than likely it was how the mechs had made it to her but if the voice was telling the truth she'd locked down as much of the area as she could before she'd been cut off. Unfortunately it looked like she hadn't had the chance to unlock it. That didn't bode well.

When she activated the solitary unlocked door it snapped open to reveal a laboratory. Long benches full of unidentified machinery, chemicals, and what she assumed to be samples filled the center of the room. Low walled cubicles were lined up against the right wall of the room up on a small platform beneath a large open window that looked down the side of the station.

Alyssa whistled as she realized the size of the station she was on, and just what condition it was in. She could see large rents in the bone colored outer hull. Most of them just gaped open out into space, whatever compartments that had been involved long since voided of their atmospheres. A few were still active though, flames licking out of the gashes as the last vestiges of oxygen in the compartments escaped before being exhausted. At least she hoped they'd be exhausted. Alyssa didn't care for the idea of being stuck on a station with faulty blast doors. Suffocating... she brought her hand up to the neck of her hard suit and touched it. The reinforced polymer gasket that would seal the suit to it's helmet was there but there hadn't been a helmet in the locker. Suddenly it seemed like an important oversight. Even as a chill swept over her body a meter popped into her field of vision in the HUD displaying the barometric pressure along with a reassuring 'nominal' beside it in comforting green letters.

Why the HUD had chosen just then to reassure her about the atmospheric integrity of the area she didn't know, and she didn't have time to consider it as the far door into the room opened and four security mechs tromped into the room in their wooden manner.

A chorus of mechanical, "Target acquired,"s bounced around the lifeless room as Alyssa ducked behind the low partition wall separating the raised cubicle area from the rest of the lab below. The high pitched whine of discharging fire arms was accompanied by the dull thump of mass driver rounds hitting the transparent plasticine wall Alyssa was crouched behind. She quickly started moving even as the plasticine cracked and then started to give way, sand grain sized chunks of metal ripping through it looking for Alyssa as she sprinted for the next bit of cover knowing it would only last a handful of rounds before buckling like the last one.

The crackling and crumbling wall did give Alyssa a split second to react in. While the mechs assessed their effects of their fire and determined what to do about the wall Alyssa popped up and brought her own submachine gun to bear. The mechs were on a small raised platform in front of the door out. With no cover for them and no programing to seek it even if it existed Alyssa aimed low at the centermost mech and held the trigger down. Her own weapon ripped off a long rolling burst towards the mechs as she got up and headed for the marginally better cover of one of the lab benches.

Her aim was as fantastic as it had been previously but the clumped together mechs and almost a thousand rounds per minute firing rate of her submachine gun meant it really didn't matter too much. The wall behind the mechs was cratered with dozens of mass driver impacts but the burst hit the dim witted robots just as well. The lead mech had crumpled over, it's legs giving out as Shepard's low aimed burst clawed out the actuators that worked it's legs. The mech to the left staggered two steps and ran into a low partition all before pitching over it and crashing through a desk on the other side. It didn't move again. The mech on the right fared better, staggered by the rounds hitting it the mech never took it's eyes off Alyssa and rapidly began to recover it's balance and head for her. The mech in the back had the bad luck to catch a round in the head and be momentarily stunned as it's main processor was forced to reset.

As Alyssa slid behind the hopefully more solid lab bench the submachine gun was returned to it's clip on her side. It was overheating and useless for the moment so she retrieved her shotgun. In spite of her body squealing in protest at her sudden action and her own concerns about her suddenly shoddy aim every other instinct she had was telling her to attack and not just let them come after her. She could hear the mech coming up the right side of the long bench she was hiding behind so she instead turned and crouched down low enough to hide behind the left side as she began to move towards the exit and the pair of supine mechs. The still mobile mech was clomping down the right as she hustled down the left, at least until the mech who's legs had given up managed to lever itself up by one arm and let loose a burst of gunfire towards her.

The mech's aim was horrible but it alerted it's still moving partner. When Alyssa popped up over the top of the bench the mech was already turning her direction. Her shotgun was already there though thanks to how loudly the mech had been moving and she fired. At close range the collection of rounds from her gun didn't have time to disperse and the entire load struck the mech in the face, ripping it clean off the automaton's body. Turning her attention back to the live opponents the mech with the dead legs, it was dragging itself towards her with it's non-gun hand. Behind it the stunned mech was starting to sit up and both of them were struggling to draw a bead on her.

Alyssa never gave them the chance, blowing away first one, then the other, with quick blasts from her shotgun. Before hopping over their bodies and through the door they'd come in.

And the damage she'd seen suddenly became much more real. Unlike the previously clean and sterile corridors this one was decorated with bullet holes, burn marks, and dead bodies. Men and women were sprawled on the floor with the tell tale pockmarks of mass driver fire cratering their bodies. The door to the lad slid shut behind her and she glanced back at, unsurprised to find bloody hand prints, scratches, and mass driver dings by the dozen on it.

The bodies piled up close to the door, everyone facing it in some way, Alyssa shivered at the thought of them running for what they thought would be safety only to find a locked door. Without armor and a weapon a security mech was as good as a trained marine and these people hadn't stood a chance.

That short moment of mourning was all she could spare though and Alyssa quickly checked over the bodies for anything useful, key cards, badges, anything that might give her information or an edge. A few datapads were laying around and Alyssa had her omnitool copy them before moving on. There was precious little else which raised the hackles on the back of Alyssa's neck. No name badges, few if any keycards, none of the usual little bits of paraphernalia that usually adorned people who worked in labs or hospitals. The only thing they all had on them was a small orange diamond shaped symbol that made her skin crawl for some reason.

Grunting in annoyance she headed for the end of the corridor and things got worse.

The hallway to the right was a seething mass of flames. She could see a blast door through the flames but it's paint was blistering. For all she knew the other side of the door could be a kiln, or it could be vented to space, not good. There was evidence of weapon's fire all over the place but no indication that any fire suppression systems had kicked on. The sprinkler heads in the roof had popped out of their housings but not a drop of foam was anywhere to be seen. As a member of the Navy Alyssa was well versed in damage control aboard a spacecraft and fire was one of the biggest hazards imaginable. Most craft's fire suppression systems were totally independent of anything, not requiring crew or even computer intervention to work. They were so dumb that what controlled them were usually plastic tabs with low melting points. Yet here the sprinkler heads had deployed, but no foam. The word sabotage echo'd loudly in her head.

To the left things looked safe, or as safe as a bullet riddled hallway strewn with papers and datapad and smeared with blood could look safe. As usual in these kind of situations things were largely relative.

She set her omni-tool to continuous scan and record so that it would grab whatever it could from any open datapads. She needed to move and she didn't have time to read everything. Starting off at a quick walk she made her way through the complex. Fires and locked doors commonly bared her path. It only took moments for her to realize she was being herded. The pattern was too perfect. She was never boxed in, never presented with a real choice. There was always just one door open, just one way to go. The hairs on the back of her neck started to raise up and she kept the submachine gun in her hands, ready.

Bland corridors started to fade and after stepping through a set off doors she found herself in what looked like an office section. Whatever had happened here had happened fast. There were few few bullet holes, just a lot of evidence of people leaving in a hurry. She stuck her head in a few of the offices to check for survivors but found none. A few of the offices had bodies in them, people who'd tried to hide from the way she found them.

As she turned a corner she heard a familiar voice talking.

"Shepard is alive," It was the same voice that has woken her, though less stressed and more excited, and with a rather attractive and statuesque raven haired face to go with it, something she'd been too distracted to really process at the time. The small office had two terminals in it and one was playing a visual log. "It was unexpected but the result is undeniable. Shepard achieved consciousness. However this is not without danger. Shepard's implants are working far beyond what was anticipated. She required five doses of Kenzelamine to sedate but showed no adverse affects to an amount of the drug that would wiped out all higher brain functions in a Krogan much less a human. I've delegated Dr. Haskins group to investigate alternative methods of awakening Shepard that will not place as much stress on her, or us, though I am beginning to wonder if we should even bother. Having just awoken she was capable of rising off the operating table, resisting multiple doses of sedative, activating her implant, and nearly breaking my wrist. I suspect she may be able to take it. We have a lot of tests to perform before we awaken Shepard, and even then we will have to confirm her identity." The woman took a deep breath and composed herself. "Regardless, Commander Shepard is alive. The Lazarus project will succeed."

Alyssa sagged against the chair in front of the desk making the office furniture squeak and protest as several hundred pounds of woman, ceramic, and metals were thrust upon it. 'What did she mean, alive? How badly was I injured?' she wondered. Subconsciously she reached up and touched the seal around the neck of her suit. 'Why didn't it come with a helmet?' she wondered.

She punched a few keys on the terminal but it only looped the same log entry again. Her omni-tool recorded it and Alyssa scanned the rest of the room. On another desk was another terminal and she crossed the room to it. This log was voice only but again it was familiar, someone from the operating room. "I asked for a raise again. Denied. With the amount of money being slung around here you'd think they could spare a little for the people making it happen. It's not like we're doing the impossible or anything. Two billion credits spent on one person, and I can't even get a crappy five percent raise. That bitch Lawson just told me, 'There are more important things at stake than your bank account.' Yeah, well, that's easy to say when you're the Illusive Man's pet. The rest of us have bills to pay."

The log cut off and just like the other terminal it was shot. It would loop the log, or section of it and nothing more. Spotting nothing more of interest Alyssa quickly left, remembering the admonitions of the raven haired woman she tried to keep the pace up.

The corridors blended together but the sense of being herded in a direction never left her. No matter where she turned, every way would be blocked but one. The cynic in her had to wonder if the people attacking the station might have taken over the door controls. How would she ever know the difference until she ran right into a firing squad of security mechs?

As if to reassure her she heard the woman's voice again but it was distant and just prattling on. As she got closer she found a computer terminal sitting in an alcove with the woman's face on just as she was beginning her entry. She rubbed her brow like someone who'd been up all night working on something, or someone who was just over stressed and over tired. "Reconstruction is proceeding as planned. The tech we received is doing it's job. The organic/synthetic interface is seamless, surprisingly so. I ordered one of the implants examined while we had her opened up yesterday. Even under the SEM we can't detect any definitive demarcation between the organic and synthetic. I am not entirely comfortable using this tech, we don't know enough about it. I also know that we cannot proceed with out it, the organic remains were too badly damaged to repair conventionally. Even if it could be done the time table won't allow it. We're still two months behind. This synthetic tech is allowing us to catch up but the Illusive Man is insistent. That we're doing the impossible doesn't seem to phase him or deter him in the slightest. On a personal note the lack of attention to detail is becoming an annoyance. We were detailed to bring Shepard back just as she was, same morals, same judgement, the same woman she used to be. The doctors here seem to think that a simple physical reconstruction will suffice so long as we get the mental aspects correct. Details like eye color, hair color, physical markings, all appear to not register with them or the potential impact they could have on Shepard and her psyche. Frankly she'll have enough to worry about when she returns, she doesn't need to wonder why she's suddenly a redhead."

As the log went into another loop Alyssa backed away from the console. 'What the hell was she talking about? How long was I under, how badly was I hurt? Who is the Illusive man? Months behind schedule? Reconstruction? Untested synthetic tech?' Something was very, very wrong.

With the log silent as it recycled for another go Alyssa heard the distant and muffled pop of gunfire. She turned on her heels and searched for an open door, when she found it she leveled her gun and charged through.

Onto a catwalk in a wide open and cavernous room. Gunfire was raking the catwalk in front of her and a small buttress gave her cover from whoever was doing the shooting. Out in the middle of it all though was a man in his late twenties with dark skin and a skin tight white and black utility suit. Upon seeing her his eyes widened. "Commander Shepard, think I can get a hand here?"

Author's Notes

1) OMG it's not dead.


	3. Chapter 3: Waking Dream

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

Chapter 3: Waking Dream

"Commander Shepard, think I can get a hand here?"

Well he knew her name and wasn't pointing his gun at her. A quick peek out of cover confirmed that it was security mechs who were trying to kill him from an overlook about fifty meters away on the other side of the chasm. While he was still an unknown to her he looked to be in a similar situation to her. Reaching around the side of the column she laid her targeting reticule over the nearest mech and started to snap off bursts.

Seemingly buoyed by her aid the dark skinned man popped up from behind cover and started firing with his pistol and in short order they had cleared the mechs out.

"Thanks Commander," he said with a smile as he jogged over towards her and she walked towards her. He hostlered his pistol but Alyssa kept her submachine gun firmly in her hand even if it was at her side.

"Do I know you?" she asked cautiously.

"No, of course not," he said as he stopped in front of her and came to attention. His right hand stiffly shot up to his brow in a salute. "Jacob Taylor, Ma'am, head of security for this facility."

Lacking any visible military insignia or using any rank Alyssa just nodded in lieu of returning his salute. "What is this facility?"

"It's a hospital ma'am, more or less."

"More or less? If this is a hospital where are the patients, why has nothing been used? And why the hell is someone attacking it?" Her eyes flicked around the giant room they were in trying to come up with some reason such a place would exist on a space station.

"There was only one patient ma'am," he said as she pointed to her. "You."

"What are you talking about? Who builds a hospital for one soldier?" Alyssa asked aggressively.

"All I know is that we were to bring you back Commander. That was the only goal of this facility. So I'm guessing whoever turned our own security mechs against us didn't want you to come back."

"Back from what?" Alyssa snapped. "Spit it out."

"You don't remember do you?"

"Do I sound like someone who remembers? All I remember is being on the Normandy, then waking up here covered in medi-gel patches with a voice telling me to get moving."

"A voice?" Taylor asked.

Shepard nodded, ignoring the tightness in her neck. "Told me to get up and moving, opened an emergency equipment locker and I think has been unlocking doors for me before she faded out."

Jacob turned his head. "Miranda. You said she faded out?"

"Her signal was jammed or ran out of juice. She seemed like she was in a hurry."

"She oughta be," he said uncomfortably. "This place is coming apart, I don't think there's anyone left."

"Where would any survivors head?"

"Shuttle bay."

"What about escape pods?" Alyssa asked.

Jacob shook his head. "All jettisoned when the attack started."

"Someone wants everyone on this station dead."

"I doubt it," Jacob said as he turned towards the door across the bridge. "You're the only reason this place exists. Without you this entire thing is pointless."

Alyssa grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Shepard... I don't know what to tell you."

"Well start with the truth and work backwards," she snapped as her grip tightened on his arm.

Jacob winced and tried to pull away from her. "Alright, when the Normandy was attacked, you died."

Alyssa jerked away from him like she'd been shocked. "What the hell are you talking about?'

Jacob rubbed his arm where she'd held him. "The collectors hit your ship, caught you unawares while you were cleaning up the geth incursion. The Normandy was destroyed, you died while saving your pilot."

"You're lying," she hissed.

"What year do you think it is?"

"Twenty one eighty three," she snapped.

"Check your omni-tool, it's twenty one eighty six."

He wasn't lying. "For all I know you could have reprogrammed it. Where the hell am I and where is my crew, where is my ship?" Her grip tightened around her submachine gun.

Jacob holstered his pistol and slowly raised his hands. "I know this is all gotta be odd for you but its the truth, today is March seventh, twenty one eighty six. Two years and four months ago you died when the Normandy was attacked and destroyed. I don't know what happened to your crew, but Miranda will. Come on Shepard, this is a hospital, you're wounded and covered in medigel patches. If I was on the side that wanted to kill you we could have done it on the operating table." He turned and pointed towards the door on the far side of the catwalk. "I don't know what's going on and I can't answer any more of your questions that I already have. You want answers, lets find Miranda and get the hell out of here."

"Where are we going?"

"Shuttlebay, only chance we've got to get off the station and where Miranda will head."

"You take point," Alyssa said curtly.

"Alright, if that'll make you happy." Jacob turned and jogged for the door, drawing his pistol as he went.

Just like before their course was dictated to them by locked doors but Jacob didn't think anything of it. "This has gotta be Miranda," he commented as they squeezed through a partially opened door. "We're headed for the shuttlebay but she's keeping us out of the main corridors."

Thankfully he was a better combatant the few times they ran into security mechs, proving to be a rather able soldier even by Alyssa's ridiculously high standards.

"Shepa... randa... can yo... d me?"

"Miranda? What's your situation?"

"Bein... pursue by... can't hel... huttleba...," the static was hissing and popping over the top of her words. Alyssa's trained ear it was obviously jamming. "Wilson!" came through loud and clear before the radio fell silent again.

"Shit," Alyssa growled.

"Sounds like she found doc Wilson and they're heading for the shuttlebay, just like I said. We need to hurry. Miranda is tough but she can't last forever," Jacob said with concern.

"Especially since the shuttlebay is a tad bit obvious."

"And that," Jacob agreed. "For a security job this is intense."

"If I wasn't pumped full of drugs this wouldn't even be a busy day for me," Alyssa said offhand as she found and open door and headed through it at a trot. She was about to turn down along hallway when she heard static from a console and a familiar voice.

"We've received Commander Shepard's remains. They're badly damaged, far more than anticipated. The doctors assigned to the project assure me that we can proceed but we will need to make use of alternative technologies we've been researching. We're looking at a potential full scale biologic/synthetic symbiosis. Regardless, project Lazarus will proceed as planned."

As the recording began to loop Alyssa took a slow step back and shook her head. It had to be a fake, or a plant. If you die that's it, you're dead. There's no coming back unless you were born in Bethlehem.

"Shepard?" Jacob asked quizzically before hearing the recording. He turned it off and looked at her. "I told you."

"It doesn't prove anything," Alyssa said defiantly as she marched off down the corridor.

"Shepard!" Jacob yelled at the retreating woman but she paid him no mind.

Alyssa forced the swirling questions that threatened to overwhelm her mind away. She had no answers for them and letting them distract her would just get her killed. Her training kicked in and helped her to compartmentalize the issue, squirrel it away for later. She'd deal with it, just not now.

The corridors blended together as she moved. Jacob confirmed that the open doorways were still leading them in the right direction and the few mechs they ran into were quickly dispatched between Jacob's biotics and her guns. Eventually they found their way to a smaller medbay. The difference being that this one looked untouched.

"Who is it, who's there?" A panicked voice asked from behind a bank of machinery. When Alyssa turned the corner she came face to face with a pistol. Her old training took over and lighting quick... ish, her hand snapped out and slapped the gun away. Only it didn't go clattering away in the dark recesses of the room like it should have it just swung away from her. It was long enough though for her to shove her submachine gun in the face of a fifty or so year old balding man in a black and white utility jumpsuit. "Whoa, I'm not with them!" he yelped. The voice reminiscent of someone she'd just listened complain about his money issues.

"That's Wilson Shepard! He's with us," Jacob said as he followed her around.

"And I was shot!" Wilson added drawing her attention to the way he was clutching his side and blood soaked the uniform there.

"It's not going to be fatal," Alyssa said. There was nothing vital where he'd been shot, that much was obvious to someone who'd spent her life being shot at and shot.

"Well it hurts!"

"There's some medi-gel in the dispenser over here," Jacob said as he retrieved it and applied it to the wound.

"You got lucky," Alyssa observed as she looked around the pristine room. The only blood she saw was under where Wilson had been sitting. "How did you make it in here again?"

"The mechs chased me in here. I managed to dodge them but one of them tagged me. I was trying to get to the shuttlebay," Wilson complained as the medi-gel took hold, the patch sealing the wound while painkillers and antibiotics took effect.

"Right," Alyssa said.

"We're headed the same way," Jacob offered. "We've gotta get out of here."

"Alright," Wilson said as he clutched his side. "Let's go. I think the mechs moved off."

Alyssa nodded slowly, letting Wilson open the door and he and Jacob lead the way. She followed after them, carefully watching their backs, and her accomplices. Oddly enough Wilson was right and there were no more mechs before the shuttlebay.

Which all changed drastically when the large double doors opened up.

An entire chorus of "Target acquired"'s greeted them as a solid dozen security droids turned towards them in unison and opened fire. Wilson and Jacob dove for cover and started to open fire as Alyssa brought her gun up and did likewise. The mechs were searching for something and strung out across the entirety of the shuttlebay. She began to quickly make her way through them, advancing from cover to cover, her submachine gun spitting out a hail of mass driver slugs at each mech in turn. Her skills were still rusty, her aim still sucked, but her mind at least seemed to know exactly what to do and guided her clumsy actions. Sand grain sized chunks of iron accelerated to a good fraction of the speed of light peppered her barriers but the security mechs lacked the tactical cognition to focus their fire or fall back and regroup. The few stray shots that made it through her barriers were handled by the armor which was more than up to the task of stopping a few light submachine gun rounds.

"Clear!" Alyssa shouted as the last mech fell lifelessly at her feet.

"We have to hurry, more will be here any second," Wilson said as he shouldered past her towards the door to one of the docking bays.

"We need to find Miranda first," Alyssa insisted as she reached for his shoulder.

"She's the only reason we're here," Jacob agreed.

"There's no time," he insisted. "We've gotta..." The door interface turned green and startled Wilson. "uh.. g..."

Behind the door was a tall woman with raven black hair. The instant her eyes connected with Wilson's her pretty face screwed up into a grimace. With admirable swiftness her submachine gun came out and let loose a burst into his face at point blank range.

Alyssa sighed as Wilson's functionally decapitated corpse slumped to the deck. "You know you can't interrogate him now right?"

"I don't need to," the woman said with a familiar voice as she lowered her weapon.

"Miranda! What the hell?" Jacob asked in shock as he looked down at the ruins of Wilson's face.

"He was the traitor," Alyssa said while keeping one eye on Miranda. "That wasn't blindingly obvious?"

"It was to me," Miranda said. "Glad you made it Shepard."

Alyssa just nodded. "Thanks for the assist, but we need to clear the station. Check for any more survivors."

Miranda turned towards the shuttle in the docking bay behind her. "There aren't any, we're it and we won't be in a minute if we waste time."

"We need to check."

"I did Shepard. Most everyone was dead before you ever woke up. If they're not here they didn't make it."

Jacob put his hand on Shepard's shoulder. "She's right Commander. This started an hour ago and you're the only people I've seen alive in almost as long. We need to go."

Alyssa's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them and entrance door to the shuttle bay. The faint metallic clangs of metal feet on metal floors could be heard echoing from it.

"Alright, let's go," she said and followed them both into a shuttle, sitting to one side but making sure Miranda sat on the other. Jacob smoothly piloted the shuttle out of the bay and into space giving Alyssa her first look at the exterior of the station. The damage didn't look as bad from out in space and to her trained eye it was all internal, so hopefully there were no warships waiting out here for them.

"Auto pilot set," Jacob said as he joined them in the rear cabin taking a seat by Miranda. "We'll make the jump in fifteen and it's three hours onto the station."

"Good, time to conduct some tests," Miranda said.

Jacob shook his head, "Really Miranda? I've seen the Commander in action, is this necessary?"

"Of course, her awakening would have been a three month long process."

"And not happen during a firefight I assume?" Alyssa added.

"No." Miranda said without humor. "We have to confirm that the process hasn't adversely affected the Commander."

"Before I answer anything you're going to tell me what the hell is going on," Alyssa demanded. She pointed towards the orange symbol on both of her companion's uniforms. "And you're going to start with what the hell that is."

Jacob sighed and leaned forward, "Shepard..."

"No, Jacob. Not now," Miranda interrupted.

"How is she going to trust us if we don't level with her?"

"No promises even if you do," Alyssa said as she crossed her arms.

Miranda huffed and slouched back against her seat as she waved at Jacob.

"Shepard, we're with Cerberus..."

Adrenaline is an impressive anesthetic. While her body still ached Alyssa was able to shoot to her feet and free her shotgun between breathes. The barrel wavered back and forth between her two companions as if unsure who to kill first.

"...congratulations Jacob, excellent call," Miranda snarked.

"I should have known," Alyssa said. "I've seen those symbols before."

"Shepard, it's not what you think," Jacob tried to explain as he held his hands up.

Alyssa's shotgun centered on Jacob's face. "Oh really? Chasca, Adrmiral Kohaku, Rachni drones, Thorian creepers? Just what the fuck am I supposed to think?"

"Well her long term memory appears to be intact," Miranda said as Jacob tried to melt back into his seat.

"Intact enough," Alyssa said as she turned her shotgun on Miranda.

"Shepard, please. Let us explain."

"You're Cerberus, that's enough explanation for me."

"Shepard, think about it," Miranda said as she stood up. "If we wanted you dead all I had to do was leave you sleeping on that operating table until the mechs found you."

"That's the problem with ya'll. I'm less worried about you wanting me dead than I am about why you'd want me alive."

Miranda's eyes remained on Alyssa's instead of on the barrel of the shotgun pointed at her. "We need your help Shepard. That's why we brought you back."

"Brought me back from what?" Alyssa demanded.

Miranda's gaze shot to Jacob, "You didn't tell her?"

"She didn't exactly believe me," he explained as his eyes stayed affixed the Alyssa and her shotgun.

Miranda sighed and looked back to Alyssa. "Shepard, you died."

"Bullshit."

"Do you remember what happened to you before you woke up in the operating room?" Miranda asked as she kept her eyes on Shepard's.

Alyssa paused and really concentrated on the question. Truth was she hadn't had time to consider it. Her training was good on survival but short on contemplation. "We were out hunting the geth, there was a fire, ...floating... that's all I can remember."

"That's because those engrams had the least amount of time to imprint on your mind. I suspect that as time wears on you'll be able to remember more."

"Or maybe I was knocked out in whatever you did to get your hands on me. Some drugs have nasty side effects."

"How would we get to you on the Normandy?" Miranda demanded.

"All I can remember is the Normandy, nothing proves I was on it when it happened."

Jacob nudged his partner. "Just show her Miranda. She's not going to believe it otherwise."

"Fine, but if it she goes catatonic you're carrying her," Miranda said. She looked back at Shepard. "Can I show you something? From my omni-tool?"

"So long as you remember at this range this," she nudged her shotgun, "will go right through any barriers you've got and into your face."

"Duly noted," Miranda said dryly as she brought her arm up and slowly tapped a few controls. She scrolled through her files a bit until she selected one and a scene from an operating theater opened up. It was the same one Alyssa recalled waking up in, or at least she thought it was. On the slab where she'd been was some... thing. A mass of twisted and melted plastics, charred beef, and broken bits that was totally unrecognizable.

"My god Miranda," a still living Wilson said as he looked over the thing on the table. "What are we supposed to do with this?"

"Your job," Miranda in the recording said as she looked over a data pad.

"I was brought in to resuscitate a dead person. I was under the impression I'd have an actual body to work with."

"You do," Miranda said as she pointed at the thing. In the background a few nurses and what Alyssa assumed were doctors buzzed around. One brought up a cart with powered cutting tools on it.

"This isn't a body. It's cooked meat. I don't know what the Illusive Man expects but it's not going to happen," Wilson protested.

"He expects results. He expects you to do your job. You can do it or you can be replaced," Miranda said in a tone that left no question that the first step in replacing Wilson would be disposing of his body.

"Maybe there's something left," he said quietly. "Maybe this charred husk managed to protect a little living bit." He sighed and looked at the cart of cutting tools. "Be careful," he ordered the other doctor who was preparing to make use of them. "Take your time and avoid the... tissue. If you remove any with the armor save it, we might need it. Commander Shepard is going to need every chance she can get."

The recording winked out and Alyssa blinked. "You could have faked that. There's no way that, whatever it was, was me."

"It was Shepard," Miranda said. "The Normandy was destroyed and you were aboard when it went. You were in orbit of Alchera and reentered it's atmosphere with only your hard suit. It was... not easy on your body. You were killed. What you saw was what was left after reentry, a hard landing, and several weeks spent on the oxygenless freezing planet."

"There's nothing there that proves that was me," she said as she shook her head. Something made her let go of her shotgun with the left hand and touch the neck seals of her suit.

Miranda shook her head and brought up another log, this time it was only her in the frame and her office was dark, likely after normal work hours. "Reconstruction is proceeding. The Commander's body is taking well to the fusion with the synthetics. However that's shortened the time frame to get everything else right. Her tattoos were relatively easy to replicate. Our contacts were able to provide body scans from the Spectre Requisitions office the last time Shepard got new armor and had it fitted. It was done just prior to her mission to Illos so it should be up to date. I can't discount that she might have had other tattoo's done between Illos and Alchera but there are no body scans to corroborate it and the only other person who could tell us isn't interested in talking to us. Hopefully it won't cause problems but I'm doing all I can. I have to admit it was amusing to watch Wilson's face when I brought in the auto-tat. I think he thought I was defacing his great work. He has no attention for detail," she said with a dejected sigh. "I had to stop him from initiating the hair regrowth process. He insisted on just going with regular black. My insistence that it wasn't just black went right over his head. The commander's hair had this odd... undertone to it that I'm having trouble getting just right. Regrowth should only take a week to get it back to it's proper length but I don't have a lot of time left to get it right. Maybe something to do with her genetic alterations, I'll have to check into it. The only reason Wilson even worried about getting the Commander's hair color right was after he had just not even bothered thinking about her eyes. The man really didn't see the problem with her having glowing red eyes." Video Miranda shook her head and buried it in her palm. "I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have just given him that raise and maybe he'd actually give a damn. I'll have to keep an eye on him, at this point he's trending towards becoming a liability."

"Well you were right about that," Alyssa said as the log ended.

"A little too late on picking it up though."

Jacob leaned in, "Do you believe us now Shepard?"

"No, a video and a log entry can be faked, easily."

Miranda lowered her omni-tool. "Then ignore it for now," she said. "Shepard we need you, humanity needs you."

"What for?" Alyssa asked as she backed across the cabin to the benches on the other side.

"Human colonies are disappearing," Jacob answered. "We've lost five colonies in the Terminus this year alone. Three the year before that and it's accelerating."

"At least eight hundred thousand people have gone missing in the last two years," Miranda said. "And the Alliance isn't doing anything about it."

Alyssa's ears perked up. "In the Terminus? They can't the colonies are too many and too far apart."

"They aren't even investigating Shepard," Jacob declared. "They just push out a report saying they don't know why the colonies are missing, probably slavers, and keep the whole thing as quiet as they can."

"But it's not slavers," Alyssa led.

"No, it's not," Miranda confirmed. "You've faced them straight up. Are the clean, surgical?"

"No."

"Well these colonies are just gone Shepard. No distress call, no signs of struggle, not even evidence of weapon's fire or anything being disturbed. Just every living human in the colony gone over night."

"That's not slavers," she confirmed. "They never take everyone, everyone isn't worth something as a slave. Who is it?" Jacob and Miranda looked at each other as if looking for assurance. Alyssa's shotgun dipped away from the two of them. "Who? Don't give me this shit, you either know or think you know. Spit it out."

"It's the Collectors," Miranda said when Jacob shook his head.

"Who?"

"The same people who blew up your ship with you still in it," Jacob said.

"The Illusive Man will want to fill you in on the rest," Miranda said. Alyssa's shotgun drifted back towards them. "You can shoot us if you like but this shuttle is locked on course and that emergency suit omni-tool couldn't hack the lock outs if it had a month to do it in. Like it or not you're going with us, at least to Minuteman Station."

"Shepard, please, hear us out on this," Jacob implored her. "People are disappearing and there is no one else to help. Whatever you think of Cerberus we are about protection humanity first. All we're asking for right now is to just listen to us. Let the Illusive Man talk to you, hear him out."

"And if I don't like what I hear?"

"You'll be free to go," Miranda said.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," she said coolly. Alyssa said nothing but sat down on the bench opposite from them and laid the shotgun across her legs. "For now we obviously want you alive Shepard and there's nothing you can do to change where we're going. At the moment all we want to do is talk."

"Trust due to lack of options," Alyssa sneered.

Miranda cocked her head to the side with the faintest hint of a smile. "More or less."

"Lovely," she said as she leaned back and kept her eyes on the pair, her shotgun in her lap.

"It's gonna be a long flight," Jacob observed.

Minuteman Station was pretty nondescript as far as space stations went in Alyssa's eyes. Since mass effect fields had started to provide artificial gravity for space ships designers of space craft hadn't been nearly as restrained in their designs as evidenced by Minuteman Station's graceful docking arch. She could see the pin pricks of light that were other shuttles buzzing about as well as a few freighters moving to or away from the station. In other words it looked like any other space station she'd seen.

Jacob and Miranda never left their bench as the shuttle got nearer to the station and eventually a voice came from the speakers announcing that remote control had been transferred to station docking.

"Smart," Alyssa observed when the announcement ended.

"Thinking of grabbing control when we the autopilot ended?" Miranda asked.

"Maybe."

Miranda just smiled as the shuttle made it's way to a docking bay and settled in for a landing. The engines were spooling down when the shuttle door opened up with the light whoosh of equalizing pressures.

Jacob gestured to the open hatch. "Shall we?"

"You two first," Alyssa said. Her shotgun didn't come up but it never left her grip. Both of her companions edged carefully past her and out into the docking bay, Miranda heading for the door in while Alyssa looked around quickly. The bay had been sealed by a physical door and the shuttle they'd come in had no visible weaponry which meant the tables were quickly turning on her. She might have been in control in the shuttle but now, all someone had to do was just not open the door until she dropped her weapons or worse, open the space door and blow her out into vacuum. That was the real problem with space stations, those who controlled them controlled everything about them. Pump in a nerve agent, vent a section to vacuum, triple the gravity, if they wanted to subdue her they could and she'd never get a shot off at anything that really mattered. She kept her shotgun at her side, unholstered and ready but not obviously threatening anyone.

"Operatives Lawson and Taylor, reporting. With guest," Miranda said after activating the door's controls. The door beeped and opened up revealing a small waiting area, like a small version of a commercial space hub. To one side was a large picture window out into space with rows of seats and a few computers next to it. On the other was a control room with several people working in it. They wore similar white and black uniforms to the people who'd been at the hospital station where Alyssa had woken up.

"Well?" Alyssa asked as they stepped in.

"Well what?" Miranda asked snippishly.

"Well, what now?" she expounded.

"Now, you meet the Illusive man," Miranda answered as she went to one of the computer consoles and started working on it. "He's ready for you," she announced after checking something and she gestured towards a small staircase with a door at the bottom. "Right in there."

"Sure," Alyssa said as she started to walk towards the door. Three hours of sitting had taken it's toll on her but as she started towards the door a new surge of adrenaline washed over her system and battered down the worst of it. She wasn't sure what she'd find but she doubted she'd like it. "Come with me," she said quickly looking back at Miranda.

"I've got work to do," she replied icily.

Alyssa flicked off the safety of her shotgun and let it's capacitor's whine sound off in the small space getting both Miranda and Jacob's attention. "I insist."

"Then I guess I'm coming," Miranda said as she strode over towards the door with Alyssa. She just walked down the steps and activated the door as Alyssa came up behind her. "If we were going to gas you me being here won't stop it."

"No, but it does mean you'll use something a bit less nasty," Alyssa said as Miranda stepped into the dark room beyond. Alyssa took a few steps herself before the door slid shut behind them and a ring lit up around her feet.

"Shepard, the Illusive Man," Miranda said with a self satisfied air as a holographic representation of somewhere else coalesced around her.

"Figures," Alyssa said under her breath.

"Shepard," a middle aged man in a business suit said as he stood up from his chair. "I wasn't expecting to see you up and about this early but I've read Operative Lawson's report on what happened to the Lazarus Project."

"Subtle," Alyssa sneered.

"You don't need to hold Miranda hostage Shepard, we've brought you back to ask for your help, nothing more."

"All the same I think she'll stay in here with me."

"Have it your way Shepard, Miranda already knows what's going on." The closer he got to her avatar the more details Alyssa could make out, perfectly coiffed steel gray hair, blue eyes, the thin cigarette he kept between his fingers.

"The Collectors."

"Correct, the Collectors. Did Miranda tell you anything else?"

"No."

"They're snatching hundreds of thousand of colonists, Shepard, human colonists. They disappear and nothing is heard of them again. The Alliance is writing them off, ignoring the problem."

"But you're not?"

"I know what you think of us and our methods Shepard but our goal is the protection of the human race, it always has been. If the Alliance isn't going to do something to stop this, we will."

"Wonderful, but why me? I'm not a detective. I'm a soldier."

The Illusive Man stabbed at her with his cigarette. "That's where you're wrong Shepard. You're more than a soldier, you're a symbol."

"A symbol? You could have raised a small army for what you spent on me. What can I possibly do?"

"Shepard, because of you humanity went from a second rate power with no say in galactic affairs to holding a council seat. Turian and Asari ships failed to protect the Citadel, but Shepard and the human fifth Fleet did," he said with vigor as he began to pace his office. "You stopped Saren, our navy stopped Sovereign. The Council couldn't deny us our rightful place on the council any longer. Now, we're in a place to exercise influence over galactic politics. In less than a hundred years we've gone from learning about eezo tech to having a seat on the Citadel Council, that's unprecedented and you're the reason we made the final push."

"I wasn't trying to elevate humanity, I was trying to stop Saren and the Reapers."

"Precisely," The Illusive Man said. "That's why we want you. The Alliance will never take us seriously, anything we do is tainted. If you're involved though..."

"You can use my reputation to add respectability to your findings."

"Not our findings, your findings. I'm not asking you to rubber stamp something or be in a recruitment vid Shepard. I'm offering you a job."

"No thanks, I've already got one with the Alliance and the Citadel."

"Both of whom consider you dead," he countered.

"Then I'll get reinstated," Alyssa snarled.

"Neither the Citadel or the Alliance is concerned with the Collectors right now Shepard, they won't give you the authority or support to go after them. I will."

"And why should I care about the Collectors when the Rea..."

"...when the Reapers are still out there?"

"Something like that," Alyssa said.

The Illusive Man sat back down in his chair. "Because the Collectors are working for the Reapers."

That gave Alyssa pause. "How do you know that?"

"Because of what we know of the Collectors Shepard. They've been known of for quite some time. The asari have records of seeing a Collector ship over forty five hundred years ago. In all that time the Collectors have never attacked first, typically ignoring any ships the encounter and only fighting back if attacked. They collect things, odd thing. Fifteen sets of batarian twin boys, ten asari with a rare genetic birth defect, twenty eight turians of a certain clan, and on. They usually work through intermediaries, never directly. At least until two years ago when the Normandy was intercepted by the Collector ship and destroyed, killing you."

"So you claim."

The Illusive Man just waved her comment off and stubbed out his cigarette. "For the first time in recorded history the Collectors were aggressors. Who did they target, the person who had been instrumental in killing Sovereign. They made no attempt to collect your body, they just destroyed the Normandy, killed you, and left. After that the Collectors ceased all contact with their usual channels and they began to raid our colonies directly."

"To what end?"

"We don't know," he replied as he lit another cigarette. "That's what you're here for. Investigate what's happening, determine what they're doing, and stop them."

"And why should I trust you?"

"Because I'm going to show you what's going on Shepard. While you were on your way here threatening Miranda and Jacob with a shotgun we received word that another colony has gone dark. Freedom's Progress in the Hapes cluster of the Terminus Systems. Freedom's Progress has nearly a million inhabitants Shepard. Its as big as the Collector's entire take so far. This is the closest we've ever been to one of their operations and a chance for us to be the first boots on the ground. I want you to go there and confirm what I'm saying is true and see what you can find out. After that, what you do is up to you Shepard."

With that the connection went dark and the door opened behind them.

"Shall we go?" Miranda asked as she moved into the door silhouetting herself.

Alyssa stared into the blackness and weighed her options. Staying would yield little, they weren't going to give her the run of the station and hijacking a shuttle would mean fighting most of the residents of the station most likely. Who knew if they had frigates or fighters nearby, she'd never get out of sight of Minuteman before being destroyed. However going to Freedom's Progress meant trusting Cerberus for another shuttle ride. Still, she had a better chance on the shuttle or wherever they landed than here. If they really did take her to Freedom's Progress it would be child's play to ditch these two and hold out until someone came to investigate who wasn't with a murderous bunch of terrorists.

"Alright, lead the way."

Author's Notes

Feedback: 


	4. Chapter 4: Morning Coffee

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

Chapter 4: Morning Coffee

Freedom's Progress was as plain as a colony could be from what Alyssa could see in her research during the trip to it. The star the world orbited was too weak to keep it warm enough to turn into a garden world. As is the local temperature only creeped a few degrees over zero in the middle of summer. As for Freedom's Progress itself it had been founded ten years before to mine paladium and due to the richness of its deposits it had grown from a small starter colony of a thousand miners into a boom town with nine hundred thousand residents living in the main colony and serving the many mines that existed around it. Their biggest accomplishment of late was reaching self sufficient status with the completion of an extensive set of underground green houses. Their fabricators would no doubt be stretched to the limit if the colony was ever cut off but it could theoretically make it if they were. They'd even put in their paperwork with the Alliance to upgrade their colonial status from dependant to independent.

All in all it was quite possibly the most average colony Alyssa could imagine but it was successful and that was something to be proud of.

And now it had gone dark. The Comm buoys had registered nothing but carrier waves and regular bit checks for the last five hours.

She glanced to the side to take a look at her companions and was slightly relieved to see them both looking over their weapons and ensuring they were ready. The pilot of their shuttle kept the flight in smooth even as clouds swallowed the shuttle.

"Might get a little bumpy on the ride in, this is a nasty storm," their pilot said.

"Not good," Miranda said, "How long has it been going on?"

"Met sats say the last four hours."

Miranda huffed and looked at Alyssa. "So much for finding physical evidence outside."

"Might be why they timed it like they did," Alyssa said.

"Maybe, but the Collectors don't usually seem to care about who sees what they do."

"I wouldn't either if I had the Reapers backing me up," Jacob added.

"They don't usually snatch whole colonies though," Alyssa offered. "They might be stretching their resources doing it and want a bit more cover than normal."

"Maybe, we usually find out about these abductions days after they happen. This is the first time we'll be the first on the scene," Miranda said. "I would have liked to have gotten as much unspoiled data as possible."

"If we all got what we wished I wouldn't be here," Alyssa said to no one in particular.[a]

Their pilot cut in before Miranda could retort. "Thirty seconds to the LZ, get ready."

Alyssa unbuckled her harness and stood up. She checked her assault rifle over and it was much the same as the weapons she'd gotten from Lazarus station, serviceable, but using the ever annoying ejectable heat sinks. If things went like they thought she wouldn't have to use the thing. She stretched out a bit after sitting for so long. The medi-gel patches were still doing their job and the worst she got was a long dull ache but according to their little timers they'd expire in about eight hour which meant she had that long to find a doctor she'd trust. First things first though.

"Ten seconds!"

Alyssa hit the door controls and the side hatches opened up blasting her with negative fifteen degree air according to her external sensors. Her hardsuit would do fine keeping her warm even if her face was exposed. The shuttle was dipping low over prefab buildings as Alyssa leaned out into the slip stream. It was late in the local night but the many street lights present and flood lights around work areas illuminated things well enough. She could see the designated landing pad coming up, the built in heaters were still working and keeping it clear of ice and snow.

"Divert!" Alyssa said over the shuttle's comms. She didn't want to land in a designated but unsecured LZ. "There's an open area, looks like a heavy lift loading dock, about two hundred meters east. Set us down there then orbit two clicks out. Be ready for a fast extract."

The pilot didn't argue with her and neither did her companions. Like it or not their stock went up. They spent two billion credits on her, at least they said they did. They were going to trust her and not second guess her. When the shuttle began to settle over the loading dock she stepped out of the shuttle and dropped the three meters to the ground. She hunched low and ran fast across the open area to slide through the snow into the cover of a shipping crate. She glanced behind her to see her companions following suit, though Miranda did it with a biotic glow around her slowing her fall as opposed to the hard landing of Alyssa and Jacob. Both joined her in cover quickly and kept their heads down.

"We should head for the central admin of the colony," Miranda said as she brought up a map on her omni-tool. "We can check sensor logs and security logs from there."

"It's a million person colony," Alyssa said. "That's a lot of logs."

"That's why we're going to the central admin. It's highly decentralized system with multiple townships and outlying areas but it all feeds back to central admin. We can pull up anything we need from there."[b]

"Alright," Alyssa said. "Let's go." Miranda made a last input on her omni-tool and the navigation markers popped up on Alyssa's heads up display.

She was careful to avoid the main streets of the colony. She stuck to the back alleys, threading her way through houses and apartment blocks. Unlike what many expected of the colonies few doors were locked. Most colonies were picky about who they let join. You couldn't afford dead weight or criminals who would muck everything up. The people who worked on the colonies were rarely rich and the conditions were nothing like you'd be in back home. Then there was the fact that so often many colonists were armed which just discouraged theft even more. So when doors opened as Alyssa approached them it didn't really surprise her. [c]The conditions inside did though.

Everything was in it's place for the most part. Coffee pots sat on warmers, the acrid stink of coffee let too long wafting into the air. In some dinner was set on the table but no one was present. Beds had ruffled sheets like people had been in them but no more. There were some signs of distress but they were usually limited to nothing but an overturned cup here, a dropped data slate there. It was eerie. Just enough to suggest something bad had happened, but not enough to tell what.

It was the sound that really bothered her, or rather the total lack of it. She was used to silently sneaking through the night on some abandoned dust ball, or an airless moon. This was a bustling city, or it had been. She should hear children playing, families watching the vid, music playing, hover cars whirring through the street. Only there was no sound, nothing. Even the wind had died off leaving the night so quiet that her ears began to invent things just at the edge of her perception. She shrugged off most of them, only to realize that the persistent whirring and thud of dead footfalls wasn't imagined.

As they neared the city center prefabs had begun to give way to more permanent structures, sometimes replacing prefabs and sometimes incorporating them.

"We're only five hundred meters from the admin building," Miranda said as the peered out onto the deserted streets from the lower floor of someone's home.

"And we're not alone, there are mechs out there."

"Working mechs?" Jacob asked.

"Unless something else is making that noise."

"What noise?" Miranda asked.

"That noise," Alyssa said as she gestured towards where the administration center was.

"You're hearing things Shepard," Jacob said.

"We'll see."

"There's two more blocks of buildings and then a large open meeting space before we get to the admin building," Miranda interjected to get them back on track.

"How large?"

"A hundred and fifty meters," Miranda answered. "Not much cover."

"Any thing better?" Alyssa asked.

"That's the best we're going to do."

"Shit."

Alyssa led them out and began to thread their way through the back alleys and houses of the next two blocks but they didn't make it to the second block before they opened the back door into a two story apartment building and were greeted by, "Target Acquired."

Alyssa unlimbered her shotgun, "Lovely."

Individually the security mechs were no trouble. Similar models to the ones Alyssa had downed in the hospital but with time to grow accustomed to moving about her aim had improved somewhat. The problem was that the longer they fought the mechs the more that vectored in on them. They made slow but steady progress through the house and into the second block but came up short when confronted by the wide open assembly area before the admin building

"They're swarming!" Jacob yelled as a rocket drone's projectile blew out the window he'd been standing beside.

"We've gotta move faster!" Alyssa replied. "String'em out!" She fired her shotgun and took the head off a nearby mech but a gun drone had landed on a nearby roof and pelted her shields with mass driver rounds before she managed to duck back into cover.

"This way!" Miranda yelled as she rolled out of cover and pelted a shambling mech with a line of submachine gun fire that finished by blowing out it's optics. She turned her back on the mechs and dashed for the rear entrance for the house. Jacob followed and Alyssa covered him with a roaring burst of fire until her rifle overheated. While the mechs recovered she followed after Jacob, popping the rifle's heat sink and loading another.

Miranda led them quickly through streets and alleys, ducking into cover whenever flying drones whizzed by before getting to it again. She was leading them around the assembly area towards the other side hoping that while the distance was longer it might be less full of murderous automatons.

The sound of rifle fire and explosions told her it wasn't.

"Looks like someone is as welcome here as we are," Jacob said as they looked around the edge of a window where a collection of mechs were attacking a group of prefabs. The back side of the admin building was more industrial and quite a few shipping crates and vehicles filled the yard.

A mech pitched over into the snow with it's chest shot out. "Looks like they're giving it right back though. Collectors?"

"Doubtful," Miranda observed. "They're using conventional weapons, the Collectors have some sort of energy weapon."

"The nearest Alliance ship should be hours away still," Jacob said. "No way it's a search party."

"Survivors?" Alyssa asked.

"They'd be the first," Miranda said with a shrug.

"Whoever they are I wanna talk to them," Alyssa said and the trio moved out.

Basic mechs had no real skill or instincts so when they were caught between the cross fire of whoever was in the prefab's and Alyssa's team they didn't last long. As the last mech was sawn in two by Miranda's submachine gun someone inside the prefab hissed in a heavily synthesized voice. "Get in here before the rest see you!"

The three of them hurried up the steps to the prefab's deck and Alyssa kicked the locked door solidly. A moment later the door interface turned green and it opened up. Whoever Alyssa had expected to see in the mass produced shelter it wasn't who was waiting for her. Quarians.

"Get in get in!" The quarian male said as he waved them in and looked nervously about for more machines. Once inside he shut and locked the door behind them. A few of the other quarians inside were covering the windows of the prefab with sheets and blankets they'd found inside.

"Who's there Prazza," a familiar voice asked from the next room.

"The humans who helped us," a quarian in a more ornate envirosuit answered.

Alyssa was already taking steps towards the next room when a familiar black and purple enviro-suited form came in. "Tali?"

"Sh... Shepard?" she asked in confusion.

"Tali how did you...? Why are you...?" She didn't manage to articulate a single coherent question before she'd thrown her arms around the shoulders of her quarian shipmate and hugged her. "It's good to see..."

"Cerberus!" another quarian yelled and Tali immediately shook herself out of Shepard's grip and stepped back. Around the room the rest of the quarians were bringing up their weapons and leveling them at Alyssa, Miranda, and Jacob, who for their part were drawing their own weapons.

"Whoa!" Alyssa said, holding up her hands. "Whoa!"

"Shepard, what the hell are you doing with Cerberus?" Tali demanded with an uncharacteristically harsh tone.

"I'm not with..."

"If you're even Commander Shepard at all," Tali said menacingly as her hand dropped to her pistol and she took a step backwards.

Alyssa could feel the entire room on edge. She didn't really know what was going on but suspected that whatever came out of her mouth would determine if things turned into a shooting match at arms length. "Tali, it's me, who else would I be?"

"Changing human faces isn't hard," Tali said. "And you'd need a lot of bandages over the scars until they healed."

The medigel patches covering her left face and neck tugged on her skin when she grimaced. "It's me Tali," Alyssa said while realizing just how little that meant. She concentrated, trying to find something to prove her identity, something that wouldn't be on the records. "Was the data we found on the geth on Solcrum helpful on your pilgrimage?"

Tali paused and the room was silent, everyone waiting to see how she reacted.

"Shepard?" she asked quietly.

"I never put that in the official report, the only people who knew were me, you, and Liara."

"How are you... you died," she said as she folded one arm over her chest and ran the other over the crown of her suit.

"Everyone keeps telling me that," Alyssa said. "I think someone exaggerated."

"I can hardly believe it," she said. "It's been what? Two years? Where have you been?"

Alyssa started. "Wait. Two years?"

"Yes, two years. More actually. And now you're with Cerberus?"

"No, I'm not," Alyssa said.

"We're working together," Miranda said as her eyes flitted about the room and the still armed and belligerent quarians that surrounded her.

"Put it away Miranda," Alyssa said with a flick of her eyes to Miranda's submachine gun. "You too Jacob."

"Yes, put the guns away," Tali said and the quarians started to lower their weapons.

"They're still Cerberus, even if you know this human," the male in the ornate suit, Prazza, stated.

"Let Shepard explain first," Tali said.

"I'm not working for them, just with them for now," Alyssa said. "They told me that human colonies are going missing, entire colonies. We're investigating."

"What I'd love to know is what a bunch of Quarians are doing here fighting the security mechs right after it happened," Miranda sneered.

"Speak when spoken to Cerberus bitch," Prazza snapped.[d]

Miranda looked to retort with her submachine gun but a half dozen quarians with assault rifles in front of her made her stifle her reply.

"If you must know we are looking for one of our own. A pilgrim named Veetor's last reported position was on this colony. When we heard the colony had disappeared our team was sent to retrieve him and try to find out what was going on."

"The nearest flotilla ships are hours from here. For you to manage that you'd have had to have found out within an hour of the abductions happening," Miranda stated.

"You're not the only one with sources you know," Tali shot back.

"We're here just trying to find out what's going on," Alyssa said. "We need to get into the admin building so we can take a look at the records."

"We think that's where Veetor is," Tali said. "We can't get there because of all the mech's we've run into. "

Alyssa looked around at the quarians in the prefab, most of them wounded. "It wouldn't be any trouble for us to check the building for him. You can stay and tend to your wounded and keep a way out open for us."

"We made it this far and got stopped. What makes you think you'll make it?" Prazza demanded.

"You haven't seen the commander work," Tali stated flatly before Alyssa could say anything.

"You back us up and we'll find your lost pilgrim," Alyssa assured him.

Prazza shook his head and stormed off.

"You'll have to forgive Prazza," Tali said. "He hasn't taken being under my command well."

"I wouldn't be in a good mood after this many casualties either," Alyssa said. "What happened between you and Cerberus?"

"The short story is they raided one of our ships," Tali said as she walked to one of the windows and lifted up one side of it to look out. "What happened to you Shepard? No one has heard from you in two years."

Alyssa lifted up the other side of the curtain and peered out. The snow was still falling and she could see the administration building from here. There were only a few shipping crates and ground vehicles between them and the loading docks however. "Honestly? I have no idea. As far as I can remember I woke up on an operating table in a Cerberus lab about eight hours ago."

"You don't waste time finding trouble do you Shepard?"

Alyssa smirked. "I don't go looking for it. It finds me."

"That's the truth." Tali looked about a bit more before letting the curtain fall closed. "Looks clear to me."

"Yeah," Alyssa said stepped back and turned towards the door.

"Be careful Shepard," Tali said. "I don't want to have to wait another two years to see you again."

Miranda and Jacob fell in beside her and Alyssa thumped the door control to open it. "Hey, you know me. When aren't I careful?"

"Sonofabitch!" Alyssa exclaimed as another line of heavy mass driver fire followed her behind the shipping crate she'd dove behind. "What maniac sends a heavy mech like that to a mining colony?"

The Ymir had made it's appearance only seconds after Tali had radioed them to tell them Prazza had taken some of his marines off to find Veetor before they did. A few seconds later it was wiping the last bits of one of Prazza's marines from between it's white metal toes. Unlike the Loki's the Ymir was a full on combat mech designed to engage entire squads of enemy ground troops. Not a bad selection if you couldn't afford a full time militia.

"It's going to eat us alive," Miranda replied as she leaned out of cover and tried to overload the mech's kinetic barriers but she barely made it back into cover before a light rocket peeled back the edge of the shipping crate she was standing behind.

"Just let it get closer," Alyssa said. The big mech was pressing it's advantage, closing in to try and flush them out of cover. Not a bad tactic if it was being covered by other mechs or human soldiers. On it's own though, not so much. When the mech was just ten meters away Alyssa ordered, "Get it's attention!"

Miranda and Jacob both leaned out of cover, Miranda to hammer it's shields and Jacob spraying rounds towards it's face. Alyssa though retrieved a pair of grenades with her left hand and took off running around the opposite corner of the shipping crate from either of her companions.

The mech noticed her immediately and turned from spraying Jacob's positions with rounds to track her. It's programming warning it that someone moving quickly like her was most likely up to no good. As it tracked her it deduced she was most likely heading for the cover of a parked ground car nearby and it led an appropriate amount. Except she didn't. Alyssa planted her foot in the snow and changed direction, charging directly for the Ymir. It had over compensated and for a crucial two seconds it was aimed in the wrong direction. It tired to salvage the situation by swinging back rapidly and trying to smash Alyssa with one of it's arms but she expected that and slid under it. The Ymir tried to pivot around to get to her but Alyssa was back up almost instantly. She planted one foot on the jutting heel of the Ymir and the next higher in the lip of it's torso and hip juncture. She grabbed the lip of it's shoulder armor and hoisted herself up. The Ymir realized what was going on but not fast enough. It's arms weren't made to scratch its back.

From where she was Alyssa could see down into the collar of the Ymir. It's armor plates extended up to prevent foot troops from trying to hit the unarmored area but from directly above it on the mech's back it was just a big open void. Alyssa primed both grenades quickly and jammed them between the mech's armored back plate and it's head before she let go and let the spinning mech hurl her off. She landed on her back and skidded as the Ymir turned towards her, trying to line up it's weapons to finish her off.

The pair of grenades went off with a thunderous roar at close range. The Ymir's sturdy armor worked against it, concentrating the force of the blast and containing it within the mech's body. A fountain of machine parts and electronics were vomited up out of the Ymir's collar. It's arms were blown clear of their sockets and it's waist joint was a sheet of flame as the machine's torso was ripped off it's legs.

Alyssa was chuckling to herself on her back in the snow when Miranda and Jacob came running up to her.

Miranda was scowling. "What the hell was that Shepard? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

For his part Jacob was glancing back and forth between the commander and the smoldering remains of the Ymir with a huge smile on his face. He offered Alyssa his hand and let him help her back to her feet.

"What were we going to do, sit there and try to whittle down an assault mech with rifle fire?" She asked as she knocked some of the errant snow off her armor. She unlimbered her rifle before jerking it towards the now unguarded admin building. "Let's go before more vector in."

"You're worth a lot Shepard, try not to get yourself killed before we even get started alright?" Miranda scolded.

"I'll make sure you get your money's worth," Alyssa said as they jogged up to the back door of the building. Jacob sank to his knees before the door's glowing red lock and started to work his omni-tool. "Just gimme a second and..." The lock turned green and the door opened with a hiss. "Ta-da."

"Nice," Alyssa admitted as she led them inside. The building was like the rest of the colony, empty. There was evidence all around that it had been inhabited but none of what had happened to the people who had worked here. Miranda's map led them quickly towards the surveillance center of the building, two floors up and in the heart of it.

"We need to find this quarian pilgrim before the other's do," Miranda said as Jacob worked the door lock on the surveillance center.

Alyssa was about to speak up but Jacob managed to get the door open before she could. Inside looked as it should, rows of desks with monitors and one giant bank of monitors on the far wall with control stations and seats in front of it. And seated right in the middle of it all facing the monitors was a quarian.

"Can't let them find me. Take me like the others. Mech's might slow them down. They'll be back. They're back. Take me. Freeze me. Need to scream but can't. Can't let them find me..."

"Veetor?" Alyssa asked as they walked into the room and the door closed behind them.

If he heard her he gave no indication of it. He just kept on babbling and messing with the monitor controls.

"Are you Veetor?" Alyssa said more forcefully as she got closer.

The quarian kept ignoring her and babbling away.

"Hey!" Alyssa shouted as she came along side him. She unlimbered her side arm and fired a single shot from her pistol into the nearest monitor, shattering it.

Whatever trance the quarian had been in the pistol shot shattered it.

"Are you Veetor?" Alyssa asked as she put her pistol away.

"Yes," he said softly.

"We need to know what happened here. What happened to everyone?" she asked as she gestured at the monitors.

Veetor leaned over and activated something as the monitor wall came alive with recorded footage. From two dozen angles she watched as vaguely insectiod humanoids walked amongst the colony's streets.

"Collectors," Jacob confirmed.

"They came, no warning. Buzzing everywhere," Veetor said. The images flicked to another area. Strange seed pod shaped caskets floated amongst the colony's prefab shelters. Some of the collectors walked with them, escorting them. Others were loading colonists into another one before sealing it.

"What's that, in the background?" Miranda asked. When Veetor didn't move Alyssa leaned over and zoomed in.

"It's colonists, but they're not moving," Jacob said as the image grew.

"Looks like, mid run?" Alyssa said with slight confusion.

"Paralyzed, before they could even move very far," Miranda said. "That's how they do it without disturbing the colony. They paralyze everyone before they even start."

"Buzzing," Veetor confirmed and again the images shifted. On screen was a roiling mass of iridescent things buzzing through the air.

"Insects?" Miranda asked. "Some kind of paralytic toxin?"

"If they're insects," Alyssa said. "Could be nano-bots."

The video continued to shift from scene to scene. Collectors kept rounding up the colonists with admirable speed and efficiency. What had been a bustling colony full of people was fast becoming a ghost town.

"Is anyone seeing the time index?" Jacob asked. "Best I can tell they did this in two and a half hours or so."

"Two and a half hours to abduct almost a million colonists," Miranda said with awe.

"Look at them, almost like a colony of ants, or a hive... wait, go back!" Alyssa said. She reached around Veetor and rewound the video. "Look, over there, what the hell is that?" Alyssa said as she jabbed a finger towards one of the collectors.

"It's... glowing?" Miranda said.

Jacob got in close and watched the other monitors. The strange glowing collector was badly positioned and none of the feeds they saw had him clearly in frame but they could catch glimpses of him. "It's also directing the other ones."

"Like the queen of a hive?" Alyssa proposed.

"Or something," Miranda said. "We know virtually nothing about them."

"We know more than we did ten minutes ago," Jacob said.

"Right, we need to take this quarian and the records and go," Miranda said as the door behind them opened.

"Go where exactly," Tali asked tensely as she strode into the room with Prazza and another armed quarian.

"He has information on the collectors, information we need to find the colonists. He's coming with us," Miranda said forcefully as she interposed herself between Veetor and the other quarians.

Tali raised her omni-tool and scanned something. "His suit's been breached and he's burning up with fever. He needs to be treated, not dissected."

"We just need to ask him some questions," Jacob added. "We'll send him back to the flotilla as soon as we can."

"Ah well in that case," Tali began. "No."

"I'm afraid we're going to have to insist," Miranda began as her hand dropped to rest on the butt of her submachine gun.

"Everyone back off, " Alyssa said as she stepped between them all.

"All we need is the surveillance data he's got," Alyssa said. "It'll have more on it than he could have ever seen."

"We need to know why he wasn't taken," Miranda stated as she kept her eyes on the quarians.

"Don't know," Veetor said quietly behind them. "Buzzing started. People froze. I ran, hid. Buzzing never found me. Collectors not look for me. Got here, made the mechs protect me."

Jacob grimaced, "That was you?"

"He's delirious with fever," Tali snapped. "Whatever is in his system is nasty." She turned to Alyssa, "Please Shepard, let us take him. You can have all the data in his omni-tool."

"Take him Tali, make sure he's well," Alyssa said with a nod.

"Thank you Shepard," Tali said as she shouldered her way between Miranda and Jacob. She pulled Veetor to his feet and manipulated his omni-tool. Alyssa glanced down and saw that Tali had started to transfer the data as promised.

Miranda was fuming as Tali passed Veetor off to Praaza and the other quarian. Alyssa glanced her way and jerked her head towards the door. "Call for pickup, the roof." The other woman took the hint and she and Jacob left as well leaving Tali and Alyssa alone.

"Shepard... where have you been?" she asked.

"I dunno Tali, truthfully I don't."

"I can't believe you're with Cerberus."

Alyssa frowned. "I'm not."

"You're here with them," she said pointedly.

"The collectors are up to something," she said, "and there's a good chance they're working with or for the Reapers."

"How do you know?" Tali asked.

"They're the ones that hit us. Out of the blue, no reason, just tried to kill me."

"Still, why Cerberus?"

"I woke up in one of their facilities. Someone tried to kill me, Miranda and Jacob helped me out."

Tali folded her arms up. "So why are you here?"

"Human colonies are being taken, the entire colony. There were nine hundred thousand people here yesterday Tali. Today there's one delirious quarian and his mech army. Whatever they're doing they have to be stopped."

"So go to Anderson or the Council, they have to help," Tali said exasperatedly.

"How?" Alyssa shot back. "I woke up on their facility, used their shuttles, I haven't really had an opportunity to get away."

"You've got one now," Tali said. "Come with me, or wait here for the Alliance."[e]

"I can't."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because they know something and I need to know it to. There's more to this than just the colonies, more than they're letting on. If I walk away now I may never find out." She paused and leaned back against a desk. "And they might know what the hell has happened to me for the last two years."

Tali pointed to the medi-gel patches on Shepard's face. "Did it occur to you that they might have done that TO you?"

"Yeah, it did," Alyssa said back quietly. "There's just...," she shook her head, unable to articulate it.

"Your stomach?"

"Gut," Alyssa corrected.

"What is it with humans and food?" Tali taunted.

Alyssa shrugged. "I've gotta figure this out."

"Shepard, just get away from them for now."

"You could come with me you know, you're pretty good with a shotgun unless you've gone soft in the last two years."

"I'm still good with a shotgun," she said indignantly. "What happened to your aim?"

"Ouch," Alyssa hissed. "It's gotta be less dangerous than fighting a Reaper," she pushed hopefully.

"Shepard I can't. I have to get my people and Veetor back. I can't just abandon my post."

Alyssa shook her head. "I can respect that." Overhead the sound of a shuttle coming in over the roof was heard. "That's my ride."

"Shepard, please," Tali pleaded but Alyssa was unswayed. She rose up and headed for the door. "Just... be careful."

Alyssa smirked, "Come on, you know me."

"That's just it, I do," sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"I'll find you again Tali, the galaxy isn't that big."

Tali huffed and brought up her omni-tool. "Fine, but take my extranet address with you, use it to get a hold of me if you need me alright?"

Alyssa checked her omni-tool and nodded when she had it. "Sure thing. See ya around Tali."

"See you Shepard."

"This is exactly what we needed," the Illusive Man said as he rose quickly from his holographic chair. "This proves the collectors are behind the attacks on our colonies."

"So now we take this to the Alliance and get them moving," Alyssa said.

The Illusive Man shook his head. "The Alliance already knows the collectors are behind the attacks."

Alyssa crossed her arms. "Then what was the point of this?"

"To convince you."

"I'm getting sick of getting jerked around," she growled.

"Save your anger for the right target Shepard," he calmly told her as he took another drag from his cigarette. "Would you have believed me if you hadn't seen it for yourself? Would you be as ready to stop them if you hadn't seen what they'd done?"

Alyssa glowered at him.

"I wouldn't have believed me either in your position. So I did what I knew it would take to convince you." He calmly took another long drag at his cigarette and knocked the ash off it as the silence drug on in the room. Visibly nonplussed by Shepard's anger or lack of reply.

"Now what," she finally asked.

"Now you do what you best Shepard."

"What's the catch?"

The Illusive Man smirked. "The collectors base, wherever it is, lies beyond the Omega-4 relay."

The name tickled something in her memory but she couldn't quite place it. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"The Omega-4 relay is unique in the relay system. No one knows where it leads to. No ship that has taken the jump has ever returned from it, except the collectors." He stubbed out the remains of his current cigarette and pulled another from an expensive looking case he kept in his jacket. He lit it and leaned back in his chair.

"And you want me to figure out a way to use it, find their base..."

"...and stop them."

"How can we be sure the relay is even taking us to the right place?" she asked.

The thin smile on his face made Alyssa think of a snake. "We've suspected them for a while now. I've had agents near Omega eavesdropping on the Omega-4 relay for the last eight months. Two trips ago they were able to detect a signal sent from the collector ship to the relay. There's no way to get close enough to the relay to copy the signal with enough clarity to reuse it, and the last two trips they've made have confirmed the signal to be unique each time."

"It's an IFF," Alyssa ventured.

"Precisely. I've got my people working on a way to spoof it. There's one little detail you need to know."

"What's that?"

"The signal bears a striking similarity to the signals Sovereign used when trying to interface with the Citadel."

"They're agents of the reapers."

The Illusive man nodded. "We've also been able to analyze some of the Normandy's wreckage. The weapon they used to destroy your ship and kill you is based on the exact same technology of Sovereigns weapons."

"You could have told me this earlier," she said.

"I never lay all my cards out on the table at the start of the game Shepard."

"Then you need to start right the hell now," she snapped as she jammed a finger towards his holographic body.

"I'll tell you everything you need to know Shepard." "So long as I'm the one deciding what I need to know," she replied to the gauntlet he'd thrown down.

"My only goal is to safeguard humanity Shepard, that's my only ulterior motive. You're going to need to believe that if we're going to work together."

This time it was Alyssa who let the silence drag out leaving little ambiguity about her level of trust. "I'm going to need a team, and a ship. I can't do this alone and in a shuttle."

He held up a data pad and gestured towards her with it. "Agreed, which is why I've already taken the liberty of compiling some dossiers of potential team members..."

"I want my old team back," she butted in.

He didn't miss a beat. "Not possible."

"I get that a lot."

"Well this time it's true Shepard. In the two years you've spent resting comfortably in the grave your team moved on."

"And I'm sure you know where," she replied testily.

"Shepard, whatever your team might have been a threat to humanity they were not. I was not about to waste resources keeping tabs on aliens who posed no threat."

"You spent two billion on me but you could keep even a marginal eye out for the people who worked with me?" Alyssa asked incredulously.

The Illusive Man picked up another data pad and scrolled till he found what he was looking for. "Lieutenant Ashley Williams, Alliance special forces, currently deployed. Whereabouts classified. Garrus Vakarian, reapplied Citadel Security and accepted. Six months later resigned his position, whereabouts unknown. Urdnot Wrex, departed Alliance embassy on Earth six weeks after Normandy destruction, last official movement arrival on Citadel five days later. Further whereabouts unknown. Dr. Liara T'Soni, departed Alliance embassy on Earth fifteen weeks after destruction of Normandy. Current whereabouts unknown." He lowered the datapad. "And I believe you've had your own run in with Tali Zorah. That is everything I know about your former crew Shepard."

Alyssa shook her head slowly. The galaxy was a big place. If someone wanted to just disappear it would be child's play even in this day and age. She had no reason to think that her compatriots would be hiding but she had no idea where to start looking for them. At least they were all alive. "Who's on the list?"  
>"I'll let you look it over yourself," he said. "Miranda will have the data for you."<p>

"She's coming?"

"Operative Lawson is still technically head of the Lazarus project and you are not fully healed. Besides, Miranda is the best operative I have. She and Mr. Taylor will be invaluable to you."

Alyssa snarled, "I'm running this mission, not Miranda."

"Agreed," The Illusive Man said without complaint or contest. "She's merely there to help you. I didn't bring you back just to put you on a leash."

Alyssa's eyes narrowed. "And the ship?"

"I've arranged for it, and for a pilot I believe you'll be comfortable with," he replied smoothly with the barest hint of a smile.

"Alright, let's get to work."

"Let's," he said with finality and stabbed the disconnect button.

Behind her the lights came on and the room's door opened.

"Commander?" a familiar voice asked from the door.

Alyssa turned to see the same slender, scruffy, young face she'd gotten used to seeing so many times before peering out at her from under a ball cap. "Joker?"

Author's Notes

Feedback: 


	5. Chapter 5: Rough Morning

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

V-V

Chapter 5: Rough Morning

V-V

"Oofffhh! Yeah, that still hurts," Joker groused after Alyssa slapped him on the back.

"Where the hell have you been?" Alyssa demanded as they walked up the stairs out of the comm room.

"Flying your new ship here, these Cerberus guys take their op-sec seriously."

"Well when you're a bunch of terrorists..."

Joker scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that..."

Alyssa frowned. "You're going to explain to me what you're doing in that uniform?"

"It's kind of a long story," he said with a half laugh but cut it when he saw Shepard's glare. He coughed instead and straightened up a little, as much as his weakened frame would let him. "When the Normandy was lost and you were reported dead the Alliance wanted someone to blame for it. I was in the pilot's seat and I was the reason you uh... you know."

Alyssa's countenance softened. "There's nothing you could have done to save the Normandy. Once the collectors were on us..."

"I know, now. At the time though the admiralty board wasn't really interested. A ship that cost as much as a dreadnought was scrap and the first human Spectre was dead. They wanted someones ass on a platter. With you and Pressley dead the only butt left to carve off was mine." When they got to the top of the stairs Joker took a right and led Alyssa through a door that had previously been locked. A short corridor led them to another receiving area but this one was much larger. "They grounded me and didn't even have the decency to dishonorably discharge me."

"That sucks Joker but I'm not seeing how that gets you in this uniform. You remember what we found on Chasca?"

"I haven't forgotten Commander," Joker replied as he hobbled along. "The first few times one of them approached me I told them to go to hell. It wasn't until Dr. Chakwas approached me that I listened."

Alyssa stopped in her tracks. "The Doc?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah, surprised the hell out of me too but she got me to listen. They'd found you and were getting you back ready to fight. They'd even let me fly for you again. If you were going to be here you were going to need me so..."

"Where is Chakwas?" Alyssa asked as Joker led them to the large picture window that dominated the side of the receiving area.

"She's already on board," Joker told her.

"On board what?"

"On board our new ship," Joker said with a flourish towards the window. Out in the docking bay massive floodlights began to snap on illuminating a sleek white and black form resting inside.

Alyssa's eyes widened as she read the name on the side of the ship, "Normandy SR-2."

"I know right?" Joker said with a grin.

"They rebuilt her?" Alyssa asked incredulously.

"Nope, they improved her," Joker said with that same stupid grin on his face. Alyssa started to see the differences. First off the ship was big, much larger than the SR-1. Her sublight engines were on fixed pylons instead of movable. Her t-tail was replaced by twin vertical fins. Then there was that ugly orange logo splattered decks high beside her name. Alyssa grimaced.

V-V

"Are you sure you don't want to take a tour of the ship?" Miranda asked when she met Shepard and Joker in the airlock. Joker turned towards the cockpit while Alyssa stood toe to toe with Miranda and Jacob.

"I'm sure," she said.

"There have been significant changes...," Miranda tried to insist.

"No."

"Commander I really think..."

Alyssa's stone face cracked around the edges as her temper flared. "Dismissed Ms. Lawson!"

Miranda's own countenance revealed her own annoyance and she and Jacob left with hushed whispers being exchanged between them. Alyssa turned towards the cockpit and wearily walked in. Joker was already at his station and busy with pre-flight checks so she turned the copilot's seat towards herself and dropped her body into it with a huff. She left it facing aft where she could keep an eye on the command deck and the people working in it. All of them dressed in Cerberus uniforms.

"You know, you're the first person I've ever seen stand up to Miranda like that. I don't think she's used to it," Joker observed. "Usually it's everyone else cowering in front of her."

"The last time I got back talked that much about a decision was from a butter bars out of West Point." She glanced sideways at Joker. "Well that and a certain annoying pilot.'

"Hey now," Joker cautioned.

"And all the back talk got me killed."

Joker's jovial face dropped instantly. "Commander about that..."

Alyssa held up her hand. "Don't Joker, just don't. Whatever happened, we're here now."

"Just know I'm sorry Commander."

An image of trying to drag Joker from the cockpit as everything went to hell around her rose unbidden in her mind. "Yeah well, just know the next time you feel like going down with the ship I'm going to let you."

Joker cracked a smile. "Understood ma'am." He adjusted a few more controls before leaning towards Shepard. "Technically this is a civilian ship though. I think maybe half the people here were ever in the navy or the corps. They aren't much on rank and all here."

"Great, terrorists and civilians."

"Hey, it's not all that bad. The private sector does have some benefits."

Alyssa's eyebrow quirked up in response.

Joker worked his back against his seat. "That seat you're in right now? Leather. Not the fake, used to be a running shoe kind of leather. I mean the old fashioned 'a cow was murdered' kind of leather."

As insubordinate as he was she did have to admit that Joker did know how to make her smile. "Yeah, it is pretty comfortable."

"Heated and cooled too," he said with a satisfied grin. When he noticed the look Alyssa was giving him he got defensive. "Hey, when you spend as much time with your ass in a seat as I do you learn to appreciate a nice one."

She had to admit the seat was comfortable. Alyssa sagged into her seat as she watched the command crew do their jobs. A few more filtered in and took their positions, presumably because they were getting ready to depart. "Get the Doc up here, we all need to talk."

"Sure thing boss ma'am," Joker said as he went about his business. "So uh, where to Shepard?"

V-V

"We're going to the Citadel."

Miranda and Jacob both turned their heads and looked at the slender redheaded pixie beside the galaxy map. "And just how do you know that?" Miranda asked.

"Because that's where she's going to go," Kelly replied. "She's going to talk to Anderson and the Council."

"Jesus," Jacob sighed as he ran a hand through his close cropped hair.

"She's going to turn us in," Miranda said without a trace of amusement. That much seemed absolutely obvious to her. Shepard was an Alliance soldier, without the time to properly break her into the idea of working with them she was defaulting back to her natural reactions. It was just one more way Wilson had managed to wreck her carefully laid plans.

"She won't," Kelly said, "not yet at least."

"You can read the Commander's mind?" Miranda asked with mild annoyance. Kelly Chambers was the best psychologist that Cerberus had. She was also one of the few they had. As promising as her test scores and schooling were she was barely out of college. Miranda had helped the Illusive Man select her and knew it was as much for her physical appearance and attitude as her aptitude.

"It's my job," Kelly said. "I didn't spend the last two years studying every detail about her life just so I'd know her favorite color. She'll go to the Citadel to talk to Anderson and the council. She's not ready to trust us yet."

"And why isn't she going to turn us in?" Jacob demanded.

"Because she doesn't know what's going on, not really. Until she does she won't be closing off options."

The little redhead's surety was starting to annoy her. Miranda crossed her arms. "The Commander isn't exactly known for being thoughtful."

"Well she is," Kelly said with more determination than was expected from someone who barely broke a meter and a half tall and might weigh forty kilos after a big meal. "She's good at making decisions based on limited information. Right now she has no information, at least none she really trusts. So she's going to go to the Citadel and find out what's going on."

"We've been honest about what's going on. The Council and the Alliance aren't doing anything," Jacob said.

"That we know of," Miranda said. "We're good, but we're not perfect. If they're running an op and Anderson lets Shepard in on it..."

"It's our asses," Jacob said.

Miranda nodded in agreement. It was infuriating to think that something like this could completely derail their plans. They had been laid out perfectly before but now due to Wilson's betrayal it could all come to nothing. If Shepard did try to hand them over on the Citadel she'd have to activate the fail-safes. Joker and Chakwas would be easy to deal with, and the failsafes would lock them out of the Normandy's systems. Shepard would be lost to them but they'd be able to salvage the Normandy. Despite the ship being an order of magnitude or two more valuable in terms of credits than Shepard losing the Commander would be the bigger blow than losing the ship. It would make her failure selecting Wilson complete.

"And if they aren't, she'll work with us," Kelly said.

"I don't think she can stand breathing the same air as us," Jacob sighed as the doctor walked past and headed for the cockpit.

"Oh no, right now she hates every one on this ship except for two people," Kelly said. "I mean really, really, really hates us."

V-V

"Dr. Chakwas," Shepard said with a weary smile as she hauled herself to her feet. She took a step towards the doctor how was extending her hand but Alyssa bypassed it completely to pull the elderly woman into a hug."

"Armor, Shepard," she wheezed. She sighed in relief when Alyssa let go and Joker sniggered behind both of them. "Ohh, it's good to see you," she said as she held Alyssa by the shoulders at arm's length. "You look like hell."

Alyssa brought her hand up to the patches covering the side of her face. "I think a busload of pain killers and stimulants are the only thing keeping me vertical right now doc."

"You need to get down to the med-bay right now Shepard," she demanded. "I need to have a look at you."

"I'm fine," she protested. "We'll be to the Citadel in a couple hours. You can check me out then."

"I need to check you out now," she said. "It's not every day someone comes back from the dead, and unless I miss my guess," she ran her fingers over a number of mass driver dings in Shepard's chest plate, "you've already been taking fire."

"A little, nothing I couldn't handle."

"You're not even alive again for twenty four hours and already you've been in a fire fight, typical."

"Two actually."

The silver haired woman shook her head. "You were always the worst about not getting yourself shot Shepard."

"Yeah she's a regular missile magnet and lucky us she's on our ship again," Joker taunted.

"Your life would be boring without me," Alyssa shot back.

"You know how many times I'd been shot down before I met you?" Joker asked. "Zero!"

"You know how many times I'd died before I met you?" she fired back.

"If you're both done I must insist you come to the med-bay, doctor's orders."

Alyssa shook her head. "Civilian ship doc, doesn't work here."

"Shepard, please. We have no idea what condition you were in but I know you weren't supposed to come back like this. All I want to do is give you an exam, make sure you're not bleeding out internally."

"Go for it, here."

"A proper one," Dr. Chakwas said testily.

Alyssa's tolerant smile faded away leaving just her hard face behind. "Look, I don't trust anyone on this ship. I'm not going to leave the cockpit and go traipsing through it. I'm here, I'm armed, and I'm in control. Until we get to the Citadel that's how it's staying."

A heavily synthesized female voice came from seemingly everywhere simultaneously. "I can assure you Shepard that the crew of the Normandy is only interested in the mission against the collectors. Great expense was spent on both you and the Normandy. We would not be so short sighted as to jeopardize either."

"What the..." Alyssa started as she looked up at the consoles overhead.

"Shepard, EDI. EDI, Commander Shepard," Joker said as he gestured between Alyssa and where the second co-pilot's seat should have been.

"Who?" Alyssa asked in confusion.

Beside Joker a holographic blue sphere materialized. A seam running from it's north to south poles split open as it talked, mimicking a mouth. "I am the Enhanced Defense Intelligence," the ball said in a rather pleasing female voice. "Or EDI as the crew calls me."

"Great, an eavesdropping VI," Alyssa snarled. "Turn it off."

"I am not a VI," the ball said defensively, "and Mr. Moreau cannot just turn me off."

"I should have known," Alyssa said, "Lawson's the only one who can turn it off huh?"

"Operative Lawson can no more turn me off than Mr. Moreau can. I am the artificial intelligence in control of the ship's cyber warfare suite."

"Fucking maniacs," Alyssa muttered.

"I am shackled to the cyber warfare suite Commander. I have no physical or electronic connection to any other of the Normandy's systems beyond a few basic internal systems like lighting and the intercom."

"The last few AI's I met all tried to kill me. One of them was trapped inside a regular server terminal and still managed to almost kill me."

"I am aware of this," EDI said in an odd tone.

"How long would it take to rip it out?" Alyssa asked Joker.

"I cannot be, 'ripped out,' without an extensive overhaul that would require the complete removal and reinstallation of the cyber warfare suite." EDI replied as if talking to a child. "Removal and reintegration would require approximately fourteen weeks of work and reduce the the effectiveness of the cyber warfare suite by approximately seventy four percent." Alyssa was about to interrupt but EDI continued. "Extrapolating from their current rate of attack the collectors would likely abduct at least two more colonies in that time."

"So I'm stuck with you?"

"Yes."

"Bloody wonderful," Alyssa said as she sighed and lowered her face into the palm of her hand.

"EDI has actually been quite helpful Commander," the Doctor offered.

"Yeah, so nice to have someone to tell me, 'The airlock door is ajar,'" Joker taunted.

"Be nice Jeff," the doctor chided him.

"You know what the best part of the old Normandy was? She was quiet."

Alyssa leaned back in her chair. "EDI, get out."

"Commander?"

"Get your optics and your microphones and your holographic beach ball and get the hell out of the cockpit."

"As you wish Commander," she replied as she vanished.

Doctor Chakwas took a half step towards Alyssa. "Shepard?"

"I'm fine, really. I'm just tired."

Joker jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the rear of the ship. "There's a cabin on the deck above, with a bed," Joker said. "It's going to take about five hours to get to the Citadel. Go up there and get some rest. I mean, there's no hot Asari scientist waiting in it..." Deathly glares from the two women in the cockpit stopped him right there.

"We need to get to the Citadel and I need to be sure they," she nodded towards the command deck, "don't interfere."

"I know you'll find this hard to believe Commander but everyone on this ship feels honored to be working with you," Chakwas explained.

"It's the Shepard fan club in here, it took two months before they'd stop pestering me about you," Joker added.

"They're Cerberus right?" she asked them both. "Fuck'em."

Joker returned his focus to his controls as he piloted the ship towards the system's mass relay and the doctor activated her omni tool and scanned Shepard.

"From what I can tell you're in no immediate danger of dying," the elderly woman said. "Low blood sugar, pulse ox is on the low side, and multiple nutrient depletions. Your body isn't dealing with your implants terribly well but the immuno-suppressants they're using look to be doing a fair job of preventing your body from attacking your implants without leaving you susceptible to anything else."

"So I'm fine," Alyssa declared.

"I said you're not likely to keel over and die any moment, not that you're fine. You're going to need immuno-suppressants long term until your body fully integrates with the implants. You need to be put on a course of nutrient boosters, and compared to my last live scans of you you've lost significant muscle mass." She reached down and pulled an energy bar from a pocket on her uniform. "Eat this. I'll bring you some thing to drink shortly."

Alyssa eyed the item warily.

"Shepard, will you stop being paranoid for half a minute and take care of yourself?" Chakwas demanded as she shoved the bar into Shepard's hand. "It's clean."

Alyssa took it and unwrapped it. Only when the aroma of apples and oats hit her nose did she realize just how hungry she was and she took a huge bite of the bar.

"Someone just got spanked," Joker chuckled softly but Alyssa was too hungry to stop eating to reprimand him. Doctor Chakwas handed her a second bar.

"Slow down Shepard," she warned. "You haven't eaten anything in two years."

Alyssa took her advice and ate the second bar slowly. Behind the doctor she saw a young redhead in a Cerberus uniform walking up the gangway with a bottle in her hand. The Doctor took it from her with thanks but the redhead's eyes were on Shepard. Alyssa returned the young woman's stare but not with the redhead's earnest interest but with a cold edge that sent the young woman scurrying out of the cockpit. When the doctor handed Alyssa the bottle she again eyed it warily until the doctor scanned it with her omni-tool.

She sighed, "It's clean."

Alyssa nodded and yanked the cap off, downing the watery punch flavored drink before doubling over coughing.

"Two years Shepard, take it easy," Joker cautioned her.

Alyssa wiped the spit from around her mouth and flung it from her fingers towards the deck before wiping her hand off on the leg of her armor.

"Not the deck...," Joker whined.

"I'm glad to see your manners are intact," Doctor Chakwas said.

"I'm gone for two years and this is the welcome back I get?" Alyssa managed after another swig of the enriched drink.

"You wouldn't have it any other way," Joker said.

"I suppose," Alyssa said.

"Shepard, rest," Doctor Chakwas said.

"The seat leans back Commander," Joker said.

Before Alyssa could protest Doctor Chakwas held up a hand. "I'll stay here with Joker to make sure nothing happens."

'The chair is comfortable,' she thought and like it or not she was tired. Not work out tired, or tough mission tired, a tired that went all the way down to her soul. "I snore."

"Yeah, Liara told us," Joker said.

"I've gotta find her," Alyssa said as she reclined the seat to its maximum.

"We will," the doctor said. "For now get some rest before you collapse."

Alyssa nodded as she let her head fall back into the head rest. She could see the stars whipping by outside the ship's canopy and in moments she was asleep.

V-V

"Seven minutes twenty four seconds," Kelly said from her terminal with a big grin as the ship shivered and returned to normal space. "That's the Rho to Davin relay jump. We're going to the Citadel."

"You got lucky," Miranda said from her position on the other side of the pulpit over the galaxy map. She might have botched Wilson's selection but the Yeoman was turning out to be annoyingly competent.

"We're screwed," Jacob added.

"We'll be fine," Kelly assured him.

"Really? So tell me Yeoman Chambers, exactly how did she look at you when you took her the drink?" Miranda said putting stress on Kelly's rank.

"She's just unsettled right now. That's why Joker and the Doctor are aboard. They'll help to calm her down."

"She's asleep in the cockpit, I think she's calm," Jacob said as he moved around the corner of the galaxy map and checked a navigation read out. "Next jump is to the Serpent relay. Should be eleven minutes forty nine seconds."

"She's exhausted," Miranda said. "We never planned for her to wake up and go directly into combat. There are months of tests and reconditioning that she's missed out on."

"She looked to be doing pretty good to me on Freedom's Progress," Jacob said.

"For the Commander that was a very off day," Kelly said from her console.

"That was her on an off day?" he asked.

"Why do you think the Illusive Man spent two billion credits to bring her back?" Miranda demanded in a huff.

"Yeah, well she snores," Jacob said.

V-V

"Shepard, wake up."

Alyssa's eyes were open and her body already in motion up out of the chair she'd been in before she was even consciously awake. By the time she was awake her pistol was already in her hands, charged, and ready.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa Commander," Joker said behind her. "It's alright, we're here."

Doctor Chakwas was standing directly in front of Alyssa and doing her best to get out from in front of her pistol.

"Sorry doc," she said as she holstered it.

"I understand," she said a bit nervously.

"SitRep," Alyssa said reflexively as she turned back to the pilot's station. Outside was the familiar purple tinged haze that signaled the Serpent Nebula.

"All jumps went smooth, arrived at the nebulae a few minutes early even. We're in the pipe to the Citadel and we'll be docking in about five."

"Good."

"We're heading to one of the lower wards docking stations. We don't exactly have the same clearances the SR-1 did."

"Figures," Alyssa muttered. She took a deep breath in through her nose with her eyes closed and held it before letting it back out slowly. "Almost smells like home."

"You do know we're flying through a few million years of atomized garbage right?" Joker asked.

"Like I said, smells like home," Alyssa insisted as they broke through the inner wall of the nebula and saw the Citadel sitting there, spinning lazily through the purple mist.

"Outside of a warship I don't think I ever saw you comfortable any place but here," the Doctor said. With Joker busy and Alyssa awake she turned and headed back for the elevator to the below decks.

She never got tired of seeing the Citadel from space. Even knowing what it really was, it's real purpose, couldn't dampen her appreciation for the thing. Almost fifty kilometers long, weighing billions of tons, it really was an amazing construction. Even more so than the shear size of it was the way the races of the galaxy had inhabited it, encrusting the interior of the arms with buildings, some so large they were genuine navigation hazards for space traffic. No atmosphere, no planet, just long flat arms covered with buildings hanging out in the middle of space. It was no great shock to here that this particular Reaper trap worked so incredibly well.

"Docking in sixty," Joker said as they skimmed one of the arms. "Zakera ward. You want me to call Anderson for you?"

"No, I'll talk to him myself," Alyssa said.

"Sure, give the guy a heart attack," Joker said as he nudged the ship in close to one of the docking towers that rose out of the city sprawl.

Alyssa was already headed for the airlock though where she found Miranda and Jacob waiting on her. "We're ready when you are Shepard," Jacob said.

"Sit your asses down on the ship," Alyssa said. "I'm going by myself."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Commander," Miranda objected.

"No, a bad idea would be trying to take a pair of terrorists to visit the human Councilor," Alyssa shot back as she felt the faint nudge of the docking clamps latching onto the Normandy.

"Commander..." Miranda said back.

"I said stand down Lawson," Alyssa shot back. The airlock doors went from red to green and she smacked the door controls with her fist. The airlock popped open with only a slight hiss of equalizing pressure and Alyssa stormed off before they could object.

The docking bay was no different from the ones she'd seen last time she'd visited the citadel. People had freely come and gone before but now there was a long line in front of C-Sec officer checking permits with "New Arrivals" over her head and another pair flanking the exit into the station. She ignored the line and went straight towards the exit. One of the turians held up a clawed hand though.

"Halt."

"What for?" Alyssa demanded.

"You can't carry weapons on the Citadel," he said indicating the weapons on her hips. "You'll have to check them.'

"That's changed, but I'm Alliance military, a Spectre."

The guards looked at each other before one pulled up his omni-tool and scanned her. "Oh umm, Commander Shepard. Our uhh... records indicate that you're... dead," he said slightly flusterd as his mandibles opened and closed in confusion.

"I get that a lot."

She saw the turian's head twitch to the side and he brought one hand up to his auditory canal. "Right," he said to no one. "I'll send her through." He gestured towards the hatch. "Head on through, Captain Bailey will speak with you."

Alyssa did as she was told. The corridor behind set up with an observation booth on one side and doors at either end that could be locked to contain problems. As she walked through it blue scanner beams played over her and alarms started to go off but the operator in the observation booth waved her on. Outside a few officers led her into the C-Sec station that covered the entrance to an office overlooking the new arrivals area. A rugged older man with a tight blonde buzzcut and quite a few scars looked up from his desk. He appraised her with a cold eye before breaking into a thin lipped grin. "Commander Shepard, glad to see you're alive."

"You don't sound surprised," Alyssa answered.

Captain Bailey shook his head slowly. "You're a Spectre, until there's a body there's no reason to believe one of you is dead. Certainly not you."

"Not me?" Alyssa asked.

"With your service record, and the way you handled that rogue turian Spectre?" Bailey chuckled and shook his head. "No, a couple geth weren't going to take you out no matter what the brass tried to tell us."

Alyssa nodded slowly.

"They made you a celebrity Shepard," Bailey explained in his gravelly voice. "The news vids were running a story about you seemed like every hour. Your history, what you did against Saren, everything they could get on you. I swear they replayed your commissioning ceremony for the Spectres till the file wore out."

She really didn't know. She'd only spent a few days on the Citadel after Sovereign's attack before being shipped out again and she wasn't much of a news junky at the time either. She'd been busy moving a certain blue alien into her cabin then. "Not sure how they'd whitewash Torfan," she muttered.

"You'd be amazed how hard the reporters can spin a story when they smell ratings."

"No, that I can believe," Alyssa said.

Bailey snorted. "I saw that uh, 'interview' with that Al-Jalani woman. Must be nice being a Spectre and being able to deal with reporters the way they deserve."

She smiled. "That's one of the perks."

"Speaking of being dead though, do you want me to return you to the land of the living?" He asked with a gesture towards his computer terminal.

"No," she said. "For now just leave me in the grave. Might be useful."

"Sure thing," he said. "I'll fix it though so you don't get hassled about the weapons and you can come and go without the noise."

"Thanks," she said. "Security is a lot tighter."

"Yeah, after the geth attack everyone's gotten nervous. Problem is I've had to strip officers off patrol duty to man all the security checkpoints since the politicians don't want to spare the money to hire more. So I've got half my officers making sure the wrong people don't get on the station and the other half doing the job they all used to do."

Shepard nodded and spoke with the captain for a few more minutes, doing her best to pick his brain for any more information on what had happened since she'd gone missing before moving on. She had to admit being surprised by how well everything was doing. The last she'd seen of the Citadel had been just after Sovereign's attack and fighting a space battle within the Citadel's arms had done the wards no favors. Now, aside from the tightened security, you'd never know the battle had even happened. Worse, the council was apparently sticking to the story that the whole thing was a geth attack. Alyssa was in a foul mood when she hailed a taxi and headed for the Presidium.

Whatever Bailey had done worked as she made her way to the embassy area and the guards did nothing but nod as her as she walked past. The human embassy had moved though from a small office tucked in among the other minor species to it's own office complex near the other council race's similar areas. The secretary's in the reception area weren't even shaken when she showed up and demanded to see Councilman Anderson. They just nodded, placed a few calls and sent her on to the elevators.

As the human representative to the council Anderson had the entire top floor of the building to himself. The reception area the elevator deposited her in could have housed the old human, volus, and elcor embassies with room left over. The various aides working in the area just pointed her towards a large door and went back to their paperwork. The doors parted and she strode into a very large, very well appointed office with a familiar brown skinned figure standing in the middle of it. Before she could say anything he threw his arms wide and bellowed, "Shepard!"

Alyssa smiled sheepishly and extended her hand. "Councilman Anderson."

He wrapped one calloused hand around hers and held tight, slapping his other on her shoulder. "It's just Anderson to you, and you look like hell child."

"It's been a rough day." Her former Commander's hairline had receded since she'd last seen him, and there was evidence of some gray starting to shoot through it at his temples but he hadn't changed in any other way. The same craggy but welcoming features and the same deep smooth voice. "You don't seem surprised to see me."

"One of the few perks of this job is that Alliance intel keeps me in the loop on a lot more than they used to when I was just a Captain." He released her hand and led her into his office, directing her towards a pair of old style leather seats with a small table between them. "Thirsty?"

"Yes actually, water please."

"No coffee?" He asked curiously.

Alyssa shook her head. "My stomach isn't really settled right now."

"First time for everything," he muttered as he notified his aide.

"So Alliance intel is keeping tabs on me?"

Anderson nodded. "The first human spectre? A very close eye, though this was the first they'd heard of you in over two years."

"What did they hear?"

Anderson's warm smile faded into his usual neutral scowl. "That Commander Alyssa Shepard had shown up on Freedom's Progress with a pair of suspected Cerberus agents."

Alyssa sighed and leaned back in the chair.

Anderson called up his omni-tool and retrieved soemthing. "Doesn't help when you also pop up in a Cerberus recruitment vid at almost the same time." A display built into the table between them flared to life and a very well put together video appeared extolling Cerberus' commitment to humanity where the Alliance was abandoning colonists. How Shepard was back and fighting with them to put a stop to the abductions. She noted that all the footage of her had been parsed to avoid the side of her face covered in medi-gel patches.

"Son of a bitch."

"I've gotten calls from Alliance high command and two of the major Earth power's governments wanting to know what the hell is going on. I'm expecting to hear from the Asari, Turian, and Salarian Councilors about this soon."

"You can't actually believe I'm with Cerberus," Alyssa said.

"You aren't exactly denying that was you," he said as he pointed at the vid screen. The sound was muted but the commercial was looping.

"It was me, I was on Freedom's Progress but I'm not with Cerberus. I was just trying to find out what was happening."

"You came here aboard a frigate that looks like a carbon copy of the SR-1, with Joker piloting it, and the sigil of a suspected Cerberus front company painted on the side eight meters high."

"Captain, please. You have got to be kidding me. You read the reports, you know what I saw. Do you honestly think I'd work with them by choice?"

Anderson sat back, "By choice? So you were working with them, why?"

Alyssa groaned. "Why would I be with a human supremacist group? You know Liara. I have an asari girlfriend, until... whatever happened to me I meant full well to make her my wife. I'd be a pretty sorry excuse for a human supremacist shacking up with an alien."

"It's been two years Shepard, and Dr. T'Soni is no where to be found."

Alyssa's aggravation melted into desperation. "Do you actually... Captain, you know me. You can't actually believe this? You let me in here armed. You can't believe it."

"Two years ago you disappear and are assumed dead. For two years no one has heard anything about or from you. Now you show up on a colony that just disappeared with Cerberus operatives, you show up here in a Cerberus ship. I see your face in a Cerberus recruitment vid. You tell me what to think Alyssa."

So she did, starting at the beginning and telling him everything she knew, everything that had happened. She showed him the Freedom's Progress security logs and told him about meeting Joker and the doctor.

"I'm not surprised that Joker went. I did everything I could to get his flight status reinstated but after losing the Normandy the high command wasn't interested. I should have known he'd jump at the chance to fly again no matter who was offering it. As for Karin, I just have trouble imagining she'd join them, not without a damn good reason. She bleeds Alliance blue, always has."

"They're right though, the Collectors are behind the attacks and they work for the Reapers. They're up to something and they need to be stopped."

Anderson nodded slowly. "I agree but our options are... limited."

"Limited? We've lost over two million people so far, send in the damn fleet."

Anderson's omni-tool flared to life with a blinking red light. "Damn, I though I had a few more hours." He glanced up at Alyssa. "It's the council, all of them. Whatever they want it's going to be official." He dismissed the alarm and stood up. In one corner of the office a trio of holo projectors flared to life and holograms of the three other members of the council materialized.

"Anderson, good, you replied quickly," the turian Councilor said. Then his eyes flickered over to Alyssa who was apparently within range of the pick ups. "Shepard... don't hang up on us this time."

"What do you need," Anderson asked.

"To discuss your wayward Commander and her choice of associates," the turian Councilor replied.

Anderson grimaced. "I take it you've seen the vid?"

The asari Councilor nodded. "We have and it... concerns us."

"Concern is putting it mildly," the salarian Councilor said quickly. "A spectre associating with a terrorist group such as this, a human supremacist terrorist group no less. It sends a very dangerous message, and raises concerns about how Commander Shepard intends to use her Spectre status."

"That status can be stripped if it's abused," the turian Councilor added. "Such as if it is used in an attempt to shield the actions of a terrorist group."

Before Alyssa could butt in Anderson animatedly declared, "I have known Commander Shepard for more than five years and I can assure you that she is most definitely not doing anything of the sort." He cast a sidelong glance at Alyssa and nodded towards the council.

"I went to Freedom's Progress, a human colony in the Terminus."

"We know of it," the asari Councilor said in calm but noncommittal tones.

"The entire colony was abducted, taken by the Collectors." She transmitted the security logs to the projector's data feed. The Councilors would now see what she'd seen. "It's not the first colony they've done this to, eight others in the last two years. Two million humans taken from their homes. What's worse, I believe the collectors are acting as agents of the Reapers."

The turian Councilor snorted and raised his hands, making air quotes. "'Reapers', we have dismissed that claim. Ridiculous nonsense you were told by a rogue spectre. Don't waste our time with this fairy tail."

"Fairy tale!" Alyssa spat. "The beacons, the conduit, Vigil... god damned Sovereign!"

"The beacons which only you ever saw, the supposed mass relay that no longer works, and a VI that could have easily been programmed by Saren to tell you that ridiculous story. The geth dreadnought was destroyed. It was not the harbinger of some mythical race of genocidal machines. Saren was stopped. It is over." the turian Councilor shot back.

Anderson held up his hand in front of Shepard before she could launch into a verbal attack on the turian. "Regardless, the information that Shepard has provided is conclusive. We need to take action."

"You know that we cannot Councilor," the asari said. "If we were to send troops and ships into the Terminus it would result in an all out war. The Terminus systems are fiercely independent but the one thing they all agree on is the council staying out."

"Humans are being taken by the million!" Alyssa fired back.

"And intervening will result in casualties in the millions as we wind up fighting the entire Terminus. We might not even be able to prosecute an attack on the collectors in that situation," the salarian Councilor stated.

"So you're going to do nothing, again," Alyssa sneered.

Anderson made a chopping motion at her as he stepped forward in the feed. "Am I to take it this is the council's official position?"

"You are," the asari Councilor said.

"I have to officially voice my objection," Anderson stated.

"Noted."

"If you are done posturing can we discuss what we can do off the record?" the turian Councilor asked.

Alyssa perked up but Anderson stayed positioned between her and the council.

"I'm listening," Anderson said.

"You know we cannot send official ships and officers into the Terminus," the asari Councilor asked.

Anderson nodded, "Of course."

"Situations like this are why the Spectre's exist," said the salarian Councilor.

The turian Councilor nodded and turned towards Anderson, "Which is why, if you are willing to vouch for her, we are willing to reinstate Commander Shepard's spectre status provided she restricts her actions to the Terminus."

"And that as a council spectre she does not appear in another Cerberus recruitment vid," the salarian Councilor added.

Alyssa took a step forward and jammed her finger towards the council. "I didn't authorize that vid and I am not working for Cerberus!"

"Regardless, as a council Spectre you have very broad authority, but it can be revoked," the salarian Councilor responded.

The asari Councilor held up her hands and the rest of the group calmed. "We have all established our positions. This is our offer. What is your decision Anderson?"

He looked over his shoulder at Alyssa who shook her head dejectedly and sighed. "Fine, whatever."

He turned back to the council. "I'll vouch for Commander Shepard and accept the offer."

The asari Councilor made a few inputs into her terminal. "Very well, Commander Shepard is returned to active duty as a council Spectre. Take care of your people, Commander."

"Thank you," Alyssa said, almost managing to mean it.

Anderson echo'd her and then shut down the holo projector. "That went about as well as we could have hoped."

"What?" Alyssa said. "Did you miss the 'no fleet's' part? Sir."

Anderson walked towards the door out onto his balcony. "No, I didn't. Though you appear to have missed the bit where they didn't try to bring you up on charges of treason."

Alyssa shut her mouth and followed him out onto the balcony. The hustle and bustle of the presidium was laid out before them, the general asari theme of the architecture around them obvious as the artificial structures did their best to blend in with the artificial landscape.

"Shepard, I knew they would never agree to send in the fleets. As much as I want to I know we can't either. A war in the terminus would result in more casualties in a few weeks than we've lost colonists in the last two years and the chaos would only aid the collectors."

"We don't know that, we have to try," she said as she leaned against the railing of the balcony.

"No, the council is right, unpleasant about it, but right. Those colonists moved out there to avoid entanglements with the Alliance and the Citadel. If we show up with ships and troops saying we want to help all they'll see is an occupying force. We both know we can't spare the ships and men, not with the Reapers on the way."

"Maybe," Alyssa grudgingly admitted.

Anderson chuckled at his hard headed former subordinate.

"We still have to stop them, whatever they're up to is going to be very bad for all of us. Whatever they're doing is going to wind up costing us more than colonists and maybe more than this supposed war you're all so eager to avoid."

"I agree, which is why I just put my ass on the line to get you your Spectre status back." They both went silent, just watching the presidium slip by for several long quiet minutes. Air cars whipped past out over the presidium lake. Ten stories below them people walked between the embassies and went about their business, oblivious to those above watching them. "What happened Shepard? Where were you?"

Alyssa sighed and sagged into the railing. "I have no idea. A little is coming back to me the more I think about it but I still don't know. The last thing I remember was being on the Normandy, we were under attack. Something with Joker and then...," she trailed off.

"Then?"

"Nothing. I can't remember anything after that. All I know is twenty hours ago I woke up on an operating table on a Cerberus space station and someone was trying to kill me."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Again the silence returned but life went on all around them. "Has it really been two years?"

"It has," he confirmed. "Two years ago the Normandy was attacked and destroyed by unknown forces, presumed geth. You were MIA, suspected dead from what we heard from Joker."

"I've been getting that a lot lately."

They were both silent, mulling over the implications of it all.

"Do you really think you can trust them?"

She snorted. "No. I don't have many other options right now though."

"You know I'd do everything I can to help..."

"But you're a councilman now, and humanity is a council race. With great offices comes great inability to do anything lest you look bad."

"Ouch."

"I didn't mean it like that," Alyssa said quickly. "Well ok I kind of did."

"No, you're right. It makes me understand why they created the Spectres in the first place though."

"Yeah, I think I'm understanding it a bit better too. Do you know where Ash is?"

"That's the downside of being a Councilor, when they want things kept secret they don't tell you anything. She's on assignment, I have no idea where."

Alyssa sighed and they went back to counting cars as they flew past.

"So you think you can use them for the mission?"

Alyssa nodded. "I think so," she said as she mulled it over. "Some of them certainly seem eager enough."

"The Illusive Man's favors always come with strings attached, and a reason to advance his goals."

"I'll deal with Timmy," she said. "If I agree to help him he can damn sure stop making vids with me in them."

"The damage is done though, even if they pull that vid and don't make another one word is out."

"Not a damn thing I can do about that now," Alyssa said.

Anderson stood up straighter. "You can use it, turn it to your advantage."

"How?"

"The Terminus colonies are out there to avoid the Alliance and the Citadel. Cerberus makes a living off trying to imply they're right about things and the Alliance is wrong. You're more likely to find Cerberus sympathizers in the Terminus than Alliance ones. It might open some inroads for you."

Alyssa grimaced. "It's bad enough I have to work with them, but you want me to let people think I agree with them?"

"For the mission."

She leaned over until her forehead was on the railing. "I hate Cerberus, I hate what they stand for. I hate every last little xenophobic, small minded group that's just like them." She picked her head up and banged it softly on the railing. "I love an asari, have turian and quarian and krogan friends. Now I'm supposed to act like I'm all buddy buddy with a bunch of people who think their proper place is under humanity's feet." She knocked her forehead against the railing again. "Fuck this day."

Anderson chuckled. "No one ever said saving the galaxy would be easy."

"Why does it always feel like I'm saving it from itself though?"

V-V

"So glad you can follow orders," Alyssa snarked as she left the embassy and found Miranda waiting for her on the steps.

"Civilian ship, and I wasn't sure you weren't coming back."

"Well don't let anyone ever tell you that you don't have guts," Alyssa said as she looked Miranda over. She'd traded in her white and black skin suit for a less revealing black one, that didn't have Cerberus logos on it.

"So what now?" Miranda asked cooly, ignoring Alyssa's attempts to rile her.

"Now we collect my gear, get back to the ship, and get to work." Alyssa could see surprise in Miranda's eyes as she fell in beside Shepard and she reveled in knocking the ice queen off her game even if just momentarily.

"Collect what gear?" Miranda asked.

Alyssa didn't answer, hailing a cab and taking the short ride to an apartment complex a little ways down the presidium but still in eye sight of the embassies. When they arrived Alyssa got out, leaving Miranda to pay the fare. To turned down a few hallways before stopping at one of the doors.

"You had an apartment?" Miranda asked as Alyssa opened the door.

"When you pay in cash in full for a couple years rent even the landlords on the high and mighty presidium will look the other way," she explained as they walked in.

Truthfully the apartment was little more than some room to stretch out in between missions, or that's what it had been intended to be. She'd rented it right after Sovereign's attack and the landlord had been fine keeping her name off the lease when she'd waved a stack of credits five centimeters thick under his nose. She'd been sent out after the geth almost immediately though and while she'd moved her things in she had never really done anything with the space and it was very bare. The air recyclers had done a fair job of keeping anything from getting musty or dusty but it was still very impersonal.

Miranda was following her in but Alyssa didn't really care. The space had barely been hers. She hadn't even had the chance to bring Liara here before they'd set off again. The bedroom had a little more life to it but not much. A few pictures were placed haphazardly around. The desk had a terminal and a few civilian grade data pads.

"Sit down, watch the vid, whatever," Alyssa said with a dismissive wave. She unlatched all her weapons but didn't activate them, tossing them down on the bed instead. She ignored Miranda as she started to work the latches on the armor, disengaging it and discarding it, tossing it all towards a corner of the room where it would be out of the way. She shoulder pads, gloves, gauntlets, arm guards, and eventually chest plate found their way into the corner. Stripped to the waist she retrieved the weapons and with the ease of long practice broke them down, stripping them of their rails and tossing the useless guns in the corner with the armor before she went to the garbage and dumped the rails in it where they'd slide down into the building's refuse disposal.

"What are you doing?" Miranda asked.

"Getting rid of this dime store crap," Alyssa said as she sat down and worked the boots off. "Then I'm taking a shower and once I'm feeling remotely human again we'll get my stuff and go."

"Your cabin on the Normandy has a shower," Miranda explained.

"This one isn't bugged," Alyssa shot back. She ignored Miranda poking around the room and shimmied out of the leggings and discarded them too. Having to fight gravity on her own again without the exo-skeleton holding her up made Alyssa sag, but it wasn't like after she'd woken up. Moving didn't hurt, it was just uncomfortable. She headed for the bathroom and the large mirror it had.

"There were months of testing and rehabilitation planned after you regained consciousness Shepard. You weren't supposed to be thrust into this this way."

The bathroom was brightly lit. The frosted glass blocks that made up the outside wall let in the light from the presidium and Shepard regarded herself in the mirror. "Well we don't have months now."

Miranda sat on the bed, giving her a line of sight to the bathroom. "No, we don't." Inside she could see Alyssa regarding herself in the mirror, appraising her work.

As bad as she thought she'd looked when she woke in the hospital seeing herself in the mirror was worse. Most of the left side of her face, neck, torso, and hip were covered in medi-gel patches. The rest of her body was a network of scars. Some were faint, some silvery or brown with age but a few were still pink and fresh. The way they crisscrossed her skin made her look like a rag-doll stitched together from pieces of flesh colored fabric. The deep red gashes in her skin seemed to be confined to her face, neck and shoulder but there were a few sliding over her hip bones. She brushed her finger tips over one of them on her shoulder and felt the way the skin just split, hard and unyielding on either side, and the color of dried blood down inside it. The cracks didn't hurt and didn't appear to impair her movement but they were unsettling to look at.

She reached up to one of the patches on her face and twisted the central control knob. A faint his heralded the release of a solvent and with a light tug the silvery patch pulled away. The skin beneath it was bright pink from the patch's glue and the solvent but there were more gashes on the side of her face. A network of three forming an odd triangle compared to the one thin one on her right cheek. She started to work on the patches, peeling them off and discarding them in the waste bin beside the sink. More gashes, more scars, and more pink skin were there, even more than on her right side.

She gingerly started to move and stretch, testing her joints. There was still some stiffness and mild pain now that she didn't have copious amounts of adrenaline rushing through her veins but she'd survive. Getting beyond the obvious scars on her body Alyssa looked herself over. The body was familiar, but not hers, not anymore. When she's been very young she'd been a skinny, gangly teen but years in a street gang had hardened her, making her wiry and tough. The marines had turned a wiry little pipe cleaner into something more. She'd never been bulky but there would have been no doubt about her strength. She'd worked out constantly and been toned and fit. Liara had actually liked to trace the contours of her muscles after they made love.

Alyssa grimaced and shook her head to get her mind of the memories. Liara wasn't here right now. She actually had no idea where she was at all or even where to start looking. If she focused too much on thoughts like that it could overwhelm her.

She refocused on the mirror and frowned again. The woman in front of her was scrawny and lanky. Her, but not her. The woman she'd have been if she'd worked at a desk for the rest of her life. It was unsettling to say the least.

"Like I told you. We intended to put you into a reconditioning program that would have helped you regain your strength before you started all this. That was the plan at least."

Alyssa looked back over her shoulder at Miranda not particularly concerned with her nakedness. In the military privacy was often simply not an option. "Does the SR-2 have a gym?"

"No, but we can get some basic equipment if need be."

Alyssa looked at herself in the mirror again. "It needs to be." She turned sideways to the mirror and looked at her right shoulder.

"I made sure all your tattoo's were put back."

Alyssa nodded as she ran her fingers over the emblem there, a flaming skull over the name of her old unit, "105th ODST Helljumpers". She checked else where finding the N7 on her left shoulder intact and the few others all where they should have been, even the blue heart she'd had tattoo'd on her hip. A little corny but Liara always made her a little goofy and sappy. "Thanks," she muttered, genuinely meaning it. "The scars?"

"Were a little tougher to replicate. I wasn't about to shoot or stab you."

"Mmm, good."

She turned back to face the mirror and leaned in. Even her nose, broken during the first week of basic, was still bent slightly to the left. In fact, her face was still her own. Even with the large gashes it was still her. She was certainly paler than she should have been. Her south pacific heritage on her mother's side left her with perpetually bronzed skin though at the moment it was very light and very pale. "Not enough sun," she murmured.

"I had a sun lamp scheduled to be brought in next week. If things had gone on schedule your skin would have been the right tone when you awoke. Just too much time under hospital lights is all."

Alyssa nodded, looking herself over. Her eyes were a light violet color, a side effect of the genetic modifications done to her to give her five five eye sight. It wasn't common but in some people it caused shifts in eye color. She thought she could see small bits of red seemingly under her iris but whenever she tried to look at them they seemed to fade. Her hair was still black with the slight bluish sheen to it, and it was the right length, sitting just below her shoulders and curled slightly under. Simple, easy to deal with, and on mission time easy to put back in a pony tail or bun to keep it out of the way. Liara had always been interested in her hair, playing with it and remarking on what an odd left over trait it was. She supposed it was given most other aliens seemed to be hairless. Her lips were still stained black, a mod she'd had done when she was in the gang on Earth but had never bothered to have undone.

Her features were the same, chin a little too square, cheeks a little too wide, ears sticking out just a bit more than they should. She'd been called pretty before but she knew better. She wasn't going to be a model, not with this face. Busted beak, lips just a bit too wide and full, and now with the added scars. She sighed, it was still her. Scrawny, but her.

She leaned into the shower stall and turned it on. She got in before the water heated itself fully, shivering as the cold water splashed over her then sighing in relief as the heat came in going from warm, to hot, to nearly scalding in less than a minute and filling the stall with steam. The shower was the reason she'd bought the place. No cheap sonic shower, an honest water shower with a good heater behind it. Given the way they had to sterilize the water to keep it safe for dextro's like turians and quarians she wasn't surprised they charged extra for these kind of showers but they were worth it. The feeling of the grime, sweat, and general unpleasantness of being in a hospital was washed from her and it was glorious. She stayed in the shower long after she was clean, just letting the warm water jets massage out any remaining kinks in her muscles and for the first time in the day just letting her mind go blank even if only for a few minutes.

She didn't know how long she was in there, but it was long enough for Miranda to get anxious as she brought the real world crashing back down on Alyssa when she piped up from just outside the shower. "As I said, we have a water shower in your cabin aboard the Normandy too Commander."

Alyssa took a deep breath and turned the water off. She stepped out of the shower onto the drain mat and asked Miranda, "Towel?"

"Hmm?" Miranda said.

"Towel, unless you plan on standing there all day staring at me Lawson."

"Right," Miranda said before she found a rack off to one side with towels in it. She took one and tossed it to Alyssa before leaving the bathroom.

Alyssa shook her head as she toweled herself dry. A quick blow dry and brush dealt with her hair and she went to get dressed. Miranda was waiting in one of the chairs in the living room as Alyssa pulled on a set of underwear from her dresser. In her Alliance issue bra and panties she fetched a duffel bag from her closet and began to throw all her clothes into it. It wasn't much, just about ten days worth of underwear, socks, standard issue shirts, pants, and boots. She added in her civilian work out clothes and a few things she'd bought especially for Liara before gathering up the few pictures and knick-knacks she's left in the apartment including her civilian data pads. It only took about five minutes but every personal thing she owned or valued was stuffed into single duffel bag.

"Anything else?" Miranda asked.

"No, that's it," Alyssa said as she dumped the duffel in the middle of her bed. "First rule of the military, travel light."

"I meant to wear."

"Taken care of," Alyssa said as she went back to the closet. She opened a small panel in the back wall and thumbed in a code. The hidden wall save opened up the entire rear wall of the closet to reveal a set of armor on the left and several weapons and gear on the right.

"Impressive," Miranda remarked. "We weren't able to save your weapons or armor from the Normandy."

"I figured," Alyssa said. "Always keep a spare set." She fished out a body suit from the armor and began to pull it on. "This used to be a tight fit," she complained as she easily got the suit on. There was slack in the legs and arms where it should have been skin tight. Still, she had things to do and her armor was quickly taken from the closet and tossed on the bed where she sat down and began to put it on. Leggings, boots, knee guards, she pulled them on and locked them together. Each went on perfectly, like a glove. Unlike the suit she'd gotten from Lazarus station this suit of armor had been custom fabricated for her after the Spectre requisitions office had body scanned her. Each piece was perfectly fitted for her and her body alone. Each piece also cost more than the entire suit she'd been wearing as well. It had been a top of the line suit of Hadhe-Kadar colossus armor before she and Ashley had set about customizing it. Now even the engineers who had designed it wouldn't likely recognize it.

The chest plate snapped shut around her torso and Alyssa twisted to set the latches but found Miranda already helping her with it. "Thanks."

"No problem," Miranda said as she locked the final catch and the chest plate energized. The entire suit suddenly became much lighter as the power pack in the chestplate activated the servo-motors in the legs.

She let the other woman help her pull on the arm guards and fit the gloves. Alyssa stood and began to move before moaning happily. It felt good to be back in her own armor. She couldn't resist and looked at herself in the closet's mirror. The flat black weave under armor was decorated with charcoal gray ceramic impact plates traced with the inky black lines of a shield grid. The dark metallic purple and light gray stripes that adorned the armor in it's default mode were still shiny and new but with the flick of a switch the suit's chameleon like outer skin would shift to start blending into the back ground.

The chest plate and leggings had a dozen patches scattered over it for holding grenades or any other of the other myriad of pieces of equipment she'd need. The pauldrons of the armor were bulkier than normal but with the more powerful shield generators they housed it was worth it.

"Feels like home," she sighed as she completed her mobility checks.

She returned to the closet for her weapons. A combat knife in it's sheath was clipped to the chest of her armor on the right shoulder, upside down. Another knife was attached low on her right boot and another at her right hip. Her submachine guns were clipped low on each hip in easy reach. A large bore heavy pistol on her left hip butt forward. Grenades, charges, medi-gel, repair kits, and dozens of other pieces of gear were yanked out of the closet and deposited in their appropriate pocket. Soon the closet was empty save for two weapons.

The first was collapsed into a tight blackened bronze box. Alyssa picked it up, grunting a little at the effort, and hit the deployment trigger. The Widow anti-material rifle looked like someone had pulled the main gun off a Mako and put a pistol grip on it. Alyssa hefted it but it was the suit's servo's doing most of the work. She gave the gun a quick once over but quickly stowed it realizing that until she put on some muscle mass it was probably a bad idea to use it.

The second gun was old, so old that in it's retracted state it was still obviously a rifle though a very large one. Designed not long after eezo had first been understood and weaponized the gun had started life as an M-37 Banshee light machine gun. Much like her armor though Alyssa and Ashley Williams had put so much work into it that it was hardly recognizable as one any more. Alyssa's check out of it was far more detailed than any of the other weapons and only after a minute of fiddling with it was she satisfied and stowed it.

Alyssa opened a final compartment in the floor of the gun safe and pulled out a large heavy duffel, tossing it on the bed beside her personal items.

"Now we're ready."

V-V

Author's Notes

Feedback:


	6. Chapter 6: Brunch in Hell

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

**V-V**

Chapter 6: Brunch in Hell

**V-V**

"So what have we got?" Alyssa asked as she stood around the Normandy's conference table with Jacob and Miranda.

Miranda pulled out four datapads and laid them out on the rich mahogany conference table. "These are the first four candidates we've identified," as she spoke their profiles were displayed by the projector buried in the center of the table.

"Is this a joke?" Alyssa asked. "Three aliens and a convict?"

"No, it's not," Miranda said with an upturned nose.

"So you expect me to recruit three aliens to work with the human supremacist group?"

"No, we expect you to recruit the three aliens to work with Commander Shepard."

"Just pointing this out, but I think they might notice the logos you spray on everything."

Miranda put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned towards Alyssa. "If you can see past your prejudices and work with us to stop the Collectors so can they."

"I'm also human. They're the ones ya'll think should be on their knees serving us."

"It's not like that Shepard," Jacob said from the far end of the table with his back to the door.

"Oh? Did I miss the memo where you made it clear that human supremacy didn't include humans being supreme?"

Jacob pressed his lips together until most of the color drained out of them and Miranda cut in quickly. "Cerberus is about protecting humanity Shepard. That's our goal. The rest of the galaxy isn't going to take care of us."

"Ah, protecting humanity," Alyssa parroted while nodding her head sagely. "So what clear and present danger did the residents of Chasca pose?"

Jacob's back went ramrod stiff and what color Miranda's face drained away.

"Admiral Kohaku was clearly ready to hand the keys over to the aliens wasn't he? What with trying to investigate what the hell happened on Akuze when you fed a platoon of marines to a Thresher Maw for fun. Corporal Toombs, now there was someone ready to destroy our species. He certainly earned veins full of thresher maw venom."

"Shepard..." Jacob said quietly.

She was on a roll though. "Advancing humanity was certainly worth feeding people to thorian creepers on Binthu though. The marines in the 10th Frontier on Alathe needed to have rachni drones dropped on their heads so you could test them out I presume. That a few hundred of the humans you are so eager to protect got ripped apart is just the cost of doing business huh?" Alyssa couldn't tell whether Miranda was ready to kill her or yell at her but she wasn't going to let up. "You idiots play fast and loose with science and tactics on pointless bullshit. On the plus side you usually manage to get plenty of your own killed which is a net win for the galaxy. The problem is your fuck ups usually wind up getting a lot of innocent people killed in the process."

"Shepard!" Miranda snapped.

Alyssa stared right into Miranda's eyes at a wattage usually reserved for military grade lasers. "The real problem is when things go just as planned and you start killing innocent people on an industrial scale. Like I said, you wanting me dead worries me a lot less than you wanting me alive."

Adrenaline was singing in Alyssa's veins as she looked at the two operatives. The part of her brain that was always tactically analyzing positions went into overdrive formulating plans on how she could eliminate the two Cerberus operatives and secure the ship before anyone opposed her too strenuously. To their credit both Miranda and Jacob seemed to realize just how keyed up she was and were tensed up, seeming to contemplate how they'd handle her if things turned violent.

In the center of the table the dossiers continued to cycle through one another but the three people collected around the table weren't paying attention to them. The pressing silence as all three people regarded each other drew on and on with no resolution and each of their hands appeared to be drawing towards the butt of their weapons by millimeters at a time.

Alyssa was one wrong twitch away from pulling out her submachine guns when the doors of the conference room slid open and the slender young redhead who had brought her something to drink walked in. She took one quick glance around the room and picked up in the tension. "Did I come at a bad time?"

Alyssa's eyes had remained on Miranda's the entire exchange. She'd been watching Jacob out of her peripheral vision as well as the redhead but because of her angle from the side of the room Miranda couldn't without losing sight of Alyssa. "What is it Yeoman?" Miranda snapped after she took her eyes off Alyssa and turned to the intruder.

Having someone turn their gaze from her during a stand off wasn't something Alyssa was used to so Miranda's distraction left her momentarily at a loss for an appropriate response.

Looking like a scolded child the Yeoman stood up straighter and fumbled open mouthed for a moment before spiting it out. "You'd requested to not be disturbed but EDI wanted to let you know we are only three minutes from the relay and was requesting a destination for Joker."

"You ignored a privacy request for a course clarification?" Miranda asked incredulously.

"Omega," Alyssa said loudly enough to end Miranda's reprimand. "Tell Joker to make for the Omega relay. We've got two people on the list there so we might as well get it started there."

"Yes ma'am," the yeoman said before she turned and scurried back out the door.

"It's as good a reason as any," she muttered as Jacob and Miranda both turned back to her.

"You don't like Cerberus, we understand that Shepard," Miranda said.

"And krogans dislike salarians," she said.

Miranda wasn't going to be put off or deflected though. "This is not a Cerberus mission, not any more. When you accepted this job the Illusive Man put you in charge, Shepard. This is your mission, your ship, your crew. We do what you order, how you order it. We are all here to stop the Collectors and nothing else."

Alyssa nodded slowly. "Don't think I won't be holding you too that."

"Shepard," Jacob added. "Those things you saw two years ago? This crew had nothing to do with them. Most of the crew here was recruited specifically for this mission and have no ties to Cerberus otherwise."

"When a Cerberus recruiter came around and asked them to join they said yes. That's enough," Alyssa growled.

"Doctor Chakwas didn't take long to convince. Neither did Joker when we offered him his flight status," Miranda quipped.

Alyssa shot her a glare that would have reduced her to ash if it could have.

"Even the illustrious Commander Shepard only took one recon mission to a colony and the council turning her down to accept our help."

Alyssa was ready to draw when Jacob's voice cut in, "Ladies, Omega." 

Miranda kept calmly glaring at Alyssa while the Spectre returned it full force.

"We need a game plan for Omega," Jacob urged them. "We've got two people to contact. Which do we go for first?"

It was nothing but a ploy to deflate tensions in the room but it worked. Miranda straightened up and her superior glare evaporated. "I think we need to find Dr. Solus first. We need to find out how the Collectors are paralyzing the colonists or we don't stand a chance."

Alyssa's first reaction was to disagree, even if she'd been thinking the exact same thing. Her temper was getting the best of her though, and dangerously close to jeopardizing the mission. She might hate Cerberus and everyone allied with it with every fiber of her being but she had a job to do. "Agreed. Archangel looks to be good at what he does but if we're all statues it's not going to help us. What's Dr. Solus' location," She asked as she straightened up.

"A clinic, in the lower wards," Miranda replied. "Details are sketchy."

"We'll need to find someone local then," Jacob said.

Alyssa looked at him. "I don't suppose you know a guy?"

"Not personally," Jacob said. "Intel says that Aria T'Loak, the top local crime boss, might be a useful source of information."

"You want me to ask the mob?"

"The mob rules Omega. Aria has managed to stay on top with Eclipse, Blue Sun, and the Blood Pack all vying for control of the station," Miranda explained. "A former member of the STG decides to set up shop on the station, that's the kind of thing people like her notice."

"She might also have a location for Archangel," Jacob added.

Alyssa sighed, "Worth a shot." She felt the quiver in the deck plates as Joker piloted the SR-2 into the relay's capture field and then light shove backwards as the ancient reaper device catapulted them across the galaxy. "That's it, dismissed." Jacob and Miranda both started to head for the door but Alyssa called out. "Lawson."

Miranda paused. "Shepard?" Behind her Jacob turned his attention back to the women.

"Tell Timmy that if I ever show up in a Cerberus recruitment vid, or in any of your propaganda ever again I will personally handle destroying everything he has ever worked for in his life."

Miranda paused, blinking as she looked at Shepard before nodding. "Understood."

Alyssa stood in the conference room brooding for a little longer before deciding to move on. Where, she didn't really know. Back to the cockpit with Joker perhaps, or to find Dr. Chakwas' med-bay. With the Alliance refusing her and with the council offering her nothing more than her spectre status back she was stuck with Cerberus. It also meant she was stuck on this ship. This too bright, too clean, chrome lined scow was now her ship whether she liked it or not.

Deciding movement beat inactivity she left the conference room only to be brought up short in the doorway by the same redhead that had so raised Miranda's wrath moments before. "Yeoman?"

"Yes Ma'am!" she said with a slight bounce. "Yeoman Kelly Chambers." With her arms clasped behind her back holding her datapad other parts of the yeoman moved with the bounce.

"What is it?"

"I thought you might want a tour of the ship ma'am." Kelly offered as she brought the datapad around front and held it in both hands.

The earnest and eager to please yeoman might have been disarming if not for the elongated orange hexagon sewn into the left breast of her uniform. "Lead on yeoman."

Yeoman Chambers was at least a head shorter than Alyssa. Alyssa had never thought herself exceptionally tall but she was a bit above average. Chambers looked to be on the short side which combined with her bobbed hair and slender build gave her a very pixish air.

Kelly gestured towards the room behind Alyssa. "You're familiar with the conference room. And you came through the lab to get here," she said pointing to the starboard side of the ship. "Hopefully Dr. Solus will find it adequate when he arrives. If he doesn't I can requisition anything he might need." She turned to the side and led Alyssa to the port side of the ship where the sliding doors revealed a work space with racks of weapons and the tools to maintain them. "This is the armory. Mr. Taylor works here keeping up our equipment." Like the rest of the ship it was, clean, shiny, and far too bright. It did look to be fully stocked however. Kelly turned towards the bow and into a short hallway with a coffee pot and small cupboard filling the outer hull wall. A small window was right above the counter the pot sat on. "A little galley for the bridge crew," Kelly confirmed. "I know how much you liked coffee so I made sure we'd have a pot close at hand at all times."

Which wasn't incorrect. The rich aroma of the bitter brew in the pot was calling to her. Then the little Yeoman scooped a mug up off the counter and thrust it towards Alyssa's hand.

"Half cappuccino, half cream, with a shot of chocolate syrup," she announced proudly.

Alyssa started a bit as the Yeoman had gotten it exactly right. She looked at the mug, it even had the Alliance crest on it in gold leaf. "Thanks," she muttered.

"That's my job. There's a head on the other side off the hallway to the lab," she said as she continued on into the CIC. "This is the CIC. It was modeled after the Normandy SR-1's obviously." She pointed to a terminal to the starboard side of the galaxy map's pulpit. "That's my station." She led them to the elevator and sent it down. "We didn't go all the way with the turian design details like the SR-1 did. No staircases, just the elevator or the gangways by the head and galley."

Alyssa nodded and sipped at her coffee, which was ice cold. She wondered if the yeoman was as detail oriented as Miranda, and exactly where the hell she'd learned how she took her coffee. It was, she grudgingly admitted, perfect.

"Third deck," Kelly announced as the doors as the aft doors slid open. "This is the main crew deck. Crew head's and showers on either side," she said. "Separated by sex, civilian ship after all. Crew quarters on either side," she said pointing towards the doors on the aft bulkhead. There's a lounge to port, " she said gesturing down the hall with her data pad, "and we already have quarters set up to starboard for the team we're assembling."

"Thinking ahead at least," Alyssa muttered.

"Well we couldn't have them all sleeping in the cargo bay could we?" Kelly teased. "I'm eager to get to meet some of them," she continued on. "Turian, salarian, krogan, you don't get to meet many aliens growing up in Kansas."

Alyssa snorted. "You joined the wrong organization if you're eager to meet aliens, yeoman."

"No, no," she said shaking her head. "Cerberus is about protecting humanity, not about subjugating aliens."

"I've heard that line before," Alyssa deadpanned. "I still don't believe it."

"It's true! I don't want to hurt anyone, I love other species. Completely different cultures from totally different worlds. The different perspectives and customs, humans are a known quantity, we deal with them every day. Aliens though, how would humans relate to them, work with them? I mean you commander, you had a ship full of them and look what you accomplished. You even fell in love with an asari...," Kelly's excited ramble stopped immediately when Alyssa's expression went from bemused interested to pure ice.

"Do NOT speak of her," Alyssa warned.

"Sorry Commander, I didn't mean anything. I actually admire how you...," Kelly nervously licked her lips as Alyssa continued to stare daggers at her.

"The tour, yeoman."

"Right, the ship," Kelly turned and hurried around the corner of the elevator and passed one of the ship's ladderways. In the center of the room was a pair of large tables and around the perimeter were doorways. "This is the ship's mess, obviously. We can move things around if we need and even show movies, " she said trying to sound chipper but still obviously strained from her faux pa. "Cabins for the ship's officers are around the perimeter, that one's mine." She pointed to the starboard one farthest forward. "Forward of that on the starboard is the medbay." She led them forward and Alyssa say the doctor inside treating a crewman. "Port is the XO's cabin, and office. That's where Ms. Lawson stays" Kelly pointed down a narrow corridor leading forward from the communal area. "That way is the main battery. Storage lockers on either side of the hall. Not much to see there."

"How's the ship armed?"

"Armed? Oh," Kelly checked her data pad. "Two forward firing mass drivers, two torpedo launchers, and guardian laser coverage all around. We're actually quite a bit more heavily armed than the SR-1."

Alyssa nodded. She took it with a grain of salt given the organization's taste in handheld firearms.

Kelly led them back to the elevator and down. "Deck four," she said as they stepped off. The wall in front of them had a long viewport over the shuttle bay below. "Cargo bays port and starboard. She turned and led Shepard through a door in the aft bulkhead of the hallway. "And here's main engineering," she said with a gestured that encompassed the entire compartment. It looked a lot like most engineering deck's Alyssa had seen. Piping and cabling everywhere connected to machinery she didn't have any idea what it did. Farther back she could see the iridescent drive core of the ship humming away. "I have no idea what any of this does aside from making the ship go," Kelly admitted. She led Shepard back out and to the elevator and stood in front of the viewport and pointed down into the bay. "Deck five is the main shuttlebay and cargo bay and that's it. The SR-2 is quite a bit bigger than the SR-1 so atmospheric maneuvering is problematic. For most insertions we carry Kodiak shuttles instead of trying to land the ship."

"You've got extra space," Alyssa commented.

"From what I gather the engineers figured we could fill it up with cargo if we didn't need more shuttles. I think," Kelly admitted.

"If there's nothing else, where's my cabin?"

Kelly got a big smile on her face. "Oh that's not all commander. Let me show you your cabin." She called the elevator and got back in, thumbing the button at the top. The elevator climbed quickly and seconds later opened up into a tiny receiving area with a door in front of them labeled, 'Captain's Quarters'."The engineers were trying to follow the old Normandy's profile when they made the SR-2," she explained. "But when they started to lay everything out they had space left over up here. They didn't really know what to do with it and I think were going to use it for a cargo bay but the Illusive Man made the call and had it retrofitted into cabin for you." Kelly stood by the door and waited.

"What?"

"The door's keyed to you, no one else can open it without your permission."

Alyssa doubted that but she played along anyways thumbing the lock. It turned green and slid open. "You must be kidding me."

Kelly bounced, actually bounced, ahead of Alyssa and into the cabin. "No, it's all yours Commander." She pointed out things quickly. "You've got an office to starboard. Behind that is your head, with a real working shower. Forward you've got your bed and a sitting area with lockers for your armor, weapons, and clothes. Oh, speaking of which, I'll bring those up if that's ok with you."

Alyssa nodded then jerked a thumb towards the port side of the cabin. "And that?"

"Oh! That's your fish tank."

"Fish tank? On a starship?"

Kelly nodded. "3,500 liters with mass effect fields to keep the water in. Big enough for anything you'd want to put in it. If they live in salt water of course."

"On a starship?" Alyssa reiterated.

"Fish are very relaxing, and Doctor Chakwas suggested that you could use something to help you unwind. So I had a fish tank added."

"You did?"

Kelly nodded. "I think it was a closet but I didn't think you'd have a lot of clothes so it would have just been wasted space."

"So you put in a fish tank? Ok." It was probably the most ridiculous thing she'd ever seen. A ship on a mission to stop the collectors, likely to be engaged in combat on a regular basis, and she had a gigantic fish tank. Three and a half metric tons of water they couldn't even drink. She looked around the space and had to shake her head in amazement. It was only slightly smaller than her apartment on the presidium and it could have held three of her cabins from the Normandy. Even for a civilian ship is was ludicrously excessive.

The silence finally broke Kelly, "I'll let you get settled in here. I'll just go get your bags Commander."

Alyssa nodded and didn't pay her attention as she left. The ship itself was remarkably like the original Normandy. A lot bigger of course, but much the same in it's layout. She was happy to see that even though it was a civilian ship, and in a few places like this cabin, and having an actual lounge they had gone nuts, but overall it was admirably packed to the gills. The few areas with enough room to stretch out were well thought out and didn't interfere with proper operations. She supposed it would do the job.

She walked through her new cabin to look it over. The office was more than she expected. The wrap around desk was actual wood, polished to a mirror finish. A workstation was set up for her and Joker would have approved of the chair, black leather. It was thankfully attached to the decking. Her head wasn't much, but the toilet, sink, and shower were hers and hers alone. She still looked up at the ceiling over the shower, half expecting to see a camera lens there.

The bed was nice, firm like she liked it, and big. Over a meter and a half wide. She flashed back to her bed on the old Normandy. It had been intended for one and even though it was larger than the crew bunks it was still tight. She'd never minded who she'd had in it for company though. She and Liara could sleep in this bed and never even touch if they wanted to.

The couches in the sitting area were comfortable, some kind of dark fabric. The lockers for her armor and guns had additional locks on them. The small dresser was already stocked with clothes but she emptied them out on the bed. She did the same for the duty uniforms she found in the closet. Even if they hadn't had the Cerberus crest on them she wouldn't have worn them. If she'd been in Timmy's shoes she'd have bugged everything, including her clothes.

When Kelly returned a few moments later and Alyssa let her in the little yeoman was straining to carry her bags. Alyssa took the one with her equipment from Kelly and dropped it in the office before putting the one with her clothes and personal items on the bed. "Get rid of this stuff," she said indicating the pile of clothes she'd emptied out of her drawers and closet.

"You don't want it?" Kelly asked.

"I don't trust it," Alyssa corrected.

It was Kelly's turn to frown. "We all want the same thing Commander. We want to stop the collectors."

"I've seen the way Cerberus does things firsthand," Alyssa said. "Bugging this ship and my clothes would be the least awful I've ever seen ya'll do."

Kelly nodded slowly and went to work scooping up the discarded clothes and managed to get them reasonably well bundled in her arms before heading for the door. She paused at it and turned back. "We're six hours out from Omega Commander. You might want to get some rest."

"Thank you, yeoman," Alyssa said as the door slid shut behind Kelly. It wasn't a bad idea but her head was spinning with too many thoughts to just lay down and rest. The simplest and most prevalent being that in the space of less than four hours she'd gone from being gung-ho to get back with the Alliance to stop the collectors to sitting on a Cerberus ship with no other recourse to stop the threat. By all right she should have been storming the ship with a detachment of Alliance marines, not acting as it's captain.

Then there was the yeoman, a xenophile, cheerful, exuberant, eager to please young woman who was everything that Cerberus wasn't supposed to be. Someone who would be close to her, always reminding her that Cerberus wasn't all that bad. She was such a disgustingly obvious plant that it was insulting. She was also physically everything that got Alyssa's attention. She was positive that detail hadn't been overlooked either. If they knew enough to make her coffee perfectly they undoubtedly could have talked to old squadmates about what turned her head.

If Joker was right about the rest of the crew she'd undoubtedly find them all much the same, hand picked to be the least offensive they possibly could, short on human superiority and long on saving the day. She didn't know what annoyed her more, the obviousness of it or that she'd have done it in their place.

And of course there was confirmation after confirmation that she really had been gone for two years with no satisfactory explanation as to how, where, or most importantly why. She unlatched her gauntlets and tossed them aside, looking at the faint scars that criss-crossed her left hand, tracing them with her fingers. Dying, no matter how many people said it, or how she taunted Joker about it made no sense, that simply wasn't possible. So where had she been, what had happened? The evidence was piling up that her memories of the Normandy's demise were accurate but then what? What if Cerberus had spent the last two years brainwashing her? Was that why she'd agreed to work with them?

That thought sent a horrified shiver up her spine. Could she trust her own body after they'd put her back together. Could she trust her own mind.

Alyssa stood up and unlocked her armor, tossing it on the bed before starting to unpack her things and stow them around the room. She finished by locking her armor into the special cabinet that had been set up for it.

She had no answers, just reams of questions. Reams of questions and a tired that was dragging her ever closer to the bed. She gave up fighting it, dejected by the lack of answers or clarity. She tucked her pistol under her pillow and did her best to get some sleep.

**V-V**

"And I thought I grew up in a hell hole," Alyssa said as Joker piloted the Normandy around an asteroid and Omega hove into view.

"Welcome to the galaxy's asshole," Joker snarked as he worked the controls. "Home to the galaxy's finest collection of space trash, criminals, mercs, and the ethically challenged."

"Where's the relay at?"

Joker worked the controls and a small red marker popped into existence on the cockpit's port side, blinking slowly red. "A couple billion clicks that way. Quiet right now."

"We need it to stay that way for a while."

"Works for me," Joker said. "I don't even like being in the same system as the thing."

"Look on the bright side," Alyssa said as she clapped him on the shoulder. "If this all goes right, you get to jump it."

"Yeah, great." He flicked on the comms and started to look for a docking port.

"Something near the Afterlife club," Miranda said. Joker raised his hand in acknowledgement.

Alyssa turned and saw Jacob checking out his submachine gun. He was dressed in the usual skin tight lightweight armor she associated with biotics. Miranda had traded in her black and white catsuit for a slightly bulkier set of armor minus the heels. For her part Alyssa was in full combat armor with all her weapons.

"Alright, think I got something. Guy wants to be paid in cash but says the docking port is only a couple hundred meters from the club. So uh, who's got the wallet?"

"Cash?" Jacob asked.

"Welcome to the Terminus," Miranda quipped. She tapped something in on her omni-tool and spoke into it. Satisfied she turned it back off. "Just be happy they didn't want to be paid in precious metals."

"Yeah well, I told him half now, half when we leave."

Kelly came up to Miranda and offered her a small pouch. Miranda opened it and pulled out a stack of scrip before sending Kelly away. When the yeoman left Miranda started counting but Alyssa found herself watching the redhead go back to her terminal. A happy little terrorist she might be but she filled out the seat of her uniform nicely.

"If you're done leering at the yeoman..." Miranda said with a roll of her eyes. She slapped half the stack of bills she's pulled out in Joker's hand.

"Jealous?" Alyssa asked but Miranda ignored her.

Joker brought the ship in and docked it gently but winced when he heard the metallic scrap of the docking clamps on the hull. While Jacob and Miranda stood by the airlock Alyssa leaned in close to Joker and quietly said, "Get on the horn. Find someone around here and have them scrap that fucking logo off the side of the ship and repaint it. I may have to put up with it being plastered everywhere in here but I want if off the side of the ship."

"Will do boss ma'am," Joker replied.

"Coming?" Miranda asked as the airlock cycled open.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch Lawson," Alyssa said as she left Joker and followed. Outside a volus was rifling through the stack of bills that Miranda had handed him but he was apparently satisfied by what he found.

Omega was everything Alyssa had been expecting from the description. The hollowed out remains of a mining town abandoned by the company that founded it so long ago no one even remembered the species that had owned it. Of course just because the company had moved on didn't mean the people had. Tens of thousands of people had chosen to stay and try to make a life for themselves. Hundreds of thousands of more had joined them. How successful they had been was open to interpretation.

"What a dump," Alyssa growled. The architecture was a mish-mash of whatever happened to be laying around at the time. The docking bay was built from what appeared to be old cargo containers and Alyssa could see at least three different models of docking arms built by two different species. There was no customs or security. They got off their ship fully armed and all three of them walked right out of the bay without so much as a side long glance. Alyssa activated her suit's comms. "Joker, get some guys down to the airlock with rifles. I don't want anyone getting close to the ship without us knowing about it."

"Roger that."

At some point someone had hollowed out the asteroid that had once been Omega. Either the company that used to mine it or overly hopeful colonists but the center of the asteroid was just gone and the gaping chasm now at the heart of Omega was a sight to behold. Towers rising out of every surface, even hanging from the ceiling. Some even had hastily constructed bridges strung between them and even a few dangling cargo containers who's purpose she could only guess at. All around there was wear and tear speaking to a population too busy trying to survive and too poor to care that the streets were cracked or some bulkhead was rusting. How the place was still operational she'd love to know. One bad weld, one neglected bit of maintenance. Life in space was too chancy to get by hoping someone would keep those things running or observe those details out of the goodness of their hearts.

The path from the docking bay had spit them out onto some kind of main street and just a little ways down from what had to be their destination. The club, it could hardly be anything else, rose above the surrounding squalor as a shining beacon of excess and debauchery. In stark contrast to the surrounding, largely brown, environment. Bright neon in red and purple curled around the huge building's facade while holoboards three stories tall projected images of dancing asari in outfits barely big enough to call lingerie for all to see. The name 'Afterlife' was emblazoned over the doors in dancing flames.

"Well that was easy," Alyssa quipped as they all headed for the club. There was a large crowd milling around outside. Some of them staggering around, trying to get what passed for fresh air outside, other's waiting, others just hanging out in front of some place they wanted to be in but couldn't be for whatever reason. Closer to the door a line was forming down the steps in front of an elcor flanked by a couple of batarians with shotguns.

Alyssa, Miranda, and Jacob all ascended the stairs towards the doors but before she could say anything to the bouncers one of the batarians stepped in front of them brandishing his shotgun. "Where do you think you're going?" He snarled.

"We're here to see Aria," Miranda said, stepping up along side Alyssa.

The batarian snorted, which for a creature with that many nostrils was not a pleasant sound. "You and everyone else. Back of the line."

"She'll want to talk to us," Miranda insisted.

"Oh really?" he sneered. "Back of the line," he growled as his shotgun started to turn towards them. Alyssa's hand lept out to grab the barrel of the weapon and hold it in place, away from them.

"Point that thing at me and you'll fucking eat it, squint," Alyssa said coldly.

The batarian lurched back, pulling his shotgun away but the barrel dropped towards the ground. "This isn't the Citadel mule, you aren't in charge here. Get lost! All of ya!" It was that moment that something caught the batarian's ear and he cocked his head to the side to listen. He nodded agreement to some unseen directive even as his shoulders slumped. "Come on," he grumbled as he turned towards the door and opened it.

The crowd in front of the elcor started to yell and complain but the quadrupedal bouncer pounded the ferrocrete with his fist knocking off a few chips and immediately silencing the line. Shepard was already inside the club's entryway following behind the batarian and her companions. There were groups lining the sides of the arched entryway, clustered around small couches or just standing in groups. Most were talking which seemed to be the main attraction of the space as even through another set of doors the bass of the club's music was a throbbing thump against her eardrums.

A group of batarians clustered around a couch spotted the group as they walked past, and a few jeers were thrown their way and at their escort. Apparently they were too drunk or dumb to leave it at that because Alyssa spotted a few knives coming out. Not omni-blades but good old fashioned slabs of sharpened metal. Before the drunken aliens could take another step towards her Alyssa's left hand had one of her submachine guns out and right in their ringleader's face. "Uhn uh uh," she cautioned them with an evil smirk.

The view down the barrel of her gun seemed to change his mind and the ringleader and his entire group beat a hasty retreat towards the doors. One had to pause to make a rude gesture at her but the sound of her weapon's capacitor's charging changed his mind and he tucked tail and ran.

"We're here for information Shepard, not to start a war," Miranda said to her as the doors to the club opened.

"War implies you could find a batarian with the stones to fight someone who can fight back," Alyssa sneered as the smells, sounds, and sights of Afterlife washed over them.

The music was too loud with a thumping bass line that pounded at your temples. The lights were simultaneously too dim and too bright, highlighting in arctinic glare the stages where human and asari dancers writhed about, on poles, or on each other while the floor below was plunged into gloom with nothing but the weak orange light from the base of the walls and tables to highlight it. Bright laser lights flickered through the haze filling the air, a heady mixture of thing various races enjoyed smoking or otherwise inhaling intermingling with sweat and a gentle undertone of vomit. The entire club was full of every race she had ever seen, a couple she'd only read about, and at least two she didn't even know existed. There was room to move through the sea of people, but not much.

The batarian knew where he was going and led them around the huge central stage that dominated this floor of Afterlife towards a raised platform that overlooked the whole club. The ramp the batarian was leading them to was guarded by a turian with an assault rifle and after a quick discussion he let them pass as did the batarian who followed behind the three of them, shotgun still in hand.

The ramp's curled upwards ninety degrees until they came to a receiving area. To their right was a group of tables, apparently some kind of VIP section given the proximity to the club's owner and the dress the people had, and to the left, was Aria.

The defacto ruler of Omega was sitting on a long couch with her back to the entrance and overlooking the club. In either corner of the box an asari dancers were slowly moving their bodies to the music from below but something was muting it, reducing it to just a background beat. Aria's dark purple head didn't even twitch as her four guards cautiously took a step towards Alyssa. The turians across the way were both armed with assault rifles while the batarian nearest her had a pistol and the one closest to Aria had a shotgun much like the door guard who was still behind them. Alyssa could already feel her heart rate speeding up.

The batarian nearest Aria brought his omni-tool up and started to advance towards her. Alyssa took a quick half step backwards and everyone tensed up. Rifles rose fractions of a centimeter, hands moved to weapon grips, and everyone's stance shifted.

"It's just a body scan, to ensure you are who you say you are," Aria said without turning her head.

"I don't think so," Alyssa said watching the batarian. She didn't trust strangers with omni-tools, she'd seen them put to too many creative uses. Grenade fabrication, shield overloads, blasts of superheated plasma, on top of the much simpler uses like flash fabricated blades. That a batarian was the one approaching her with it did nothing for her confidence.

"You don't have a choice," Aria replied firmly and the Batarian took another step towards her.

Her right hand snapped backwards and found the barrel of the door guard's shotgun even as her foot was connecting with his knee, bending it backwards with the sickly pop of torn ligaments as her hand came forward, ripping the shotgun from his grasp and sending it clattering across the floor. She was regaining her footing as her left arm hooked out and around the batarian next to her's throat, dragging the startled alien in front of her as her right hand grabbed his wrist and smashed the butt of his own pistol into the middle of his face.

The turians were bringing their rifles up but with their compatriot between Alyssa and them there was little they could do as she grabbed the gun hand of the staggering batarian in front of her and aimed his pistol at the one with the glowing omni tool and pulled the trigger twice, sending mass driver slugs through his leg above the knee, dropping him to the floor as she shoved her batarian meat shield towards his friends, using his momentum to help snatch the pistol from his grip.

Neither turian could get out of his way quickly enough to Alyssa bringing her stolen pistol in line with them and like the first target, putting two rounds into each of their legs, sending them sprawling out on the floor where she easily put a round into the body of each of their rifles as they laid there.

Through it all Aria never flinched and Alyssa paid her no real mind as she broke the pistol down and tossed the components towards the tables with the VIPs and she collected the door guard's shotgun. The unfortunate employee was laying on the ramp, holding his ruined knee and trying to crawl backwards down the ramp as Alyssa came up on him with long determined strides. "Remember what I said?" And she raised the butt of the shotgun and smashed it across the batarian's face with a wide arcing swing that sent blood and busted teeth clattering down the ramp. The shotgun joined the pistol in its component pieces as Alyssa turned back towards Aria.

"Jesus, Shepard," Jacob whispered as Alyssa walked by, he'd only just managed to draw his submachine gun by the time she'd finished shooting.

"Well, I think we can accept that as proof of your identity Commander," Aria said with a light chuckle as Alyssa walked around the edge of the couch. The dancing girls were cowering in the corners of the box as the sounds of booted feet came charging up the ramps towards them. "Have a seat," Aria said coolly as she gestured towards the couch. When the shocked guards stormed up and found their compatriots lying on the floor bleeding Aria cut off their reprisals with a dismissive wave. "Just get them out of here, we're fine."

"Aria T'loak?"

Aria snorted. "So you decided to shoot up the place before you were even knew for certain I was who you were after? You're either very sure of yourself or very stupid. Maybe both."

"It's been a rough couple of days," Alyssa said as she sat down.

"Rough enough to shoot a man for turning on an omni-tool?"

"Apparently."

"Well since you just shot three of my men get on with it."

"Dr. Mordin Solus, I need to find him."

Aria glanced over at Shepard then huffed. "The crazy salarian? He set himself up a clinic down in brown sector." She snorted. "He hasn't made himself any friends down there, he wasn't too eager to pay the Blue Suns protection fee," she said conspiratorially.

"I'll be sure to shed a tear for them," Alyssa replied while wondering to herself what kind of egghead could stand up to the Blue Suns. The mercs might be lacking in morals, intelligence, and basic hygiene but guns and the will to use them they had in spades. "Where exactly is his clinic in brown sector?"

"Section eighty seven, deck twenty nine, subsector eight," she rattled off. "But it's not going to be that easy."

Alyssa sighed, "It never is."

"There's a plague moving through brown sector. It's hitting every species there, except one."

"Which one?" Alyssa prodded.

Aria looked at her out of the corner of her eyes and smirked. "Humans."

"Great."

"The good doctor says he's working on a cure but so far," she waved her hand dismissively.

"What about the rest of the station?" 

"Quarantined," Aria fired back. "I saw to that right away. No one in or out of brown sector, no exceptions. The doctor can either find a cure or... the disease will run its course. Either way I can't afford to chance the spread of it. No one will pay to watch an asari with a fever and puking her guts out shake her ass."

"Any idea where it came from?"

"None. People just started to fall over and die. Well, most people."

"What about Archangel?"

"You're a week too late for him."

"How's that?"

He makes friends about as well as you do. He finally pissed enough people off and now he's got Eclipse, the Blood Pack, and the Blue Suns working together to be rid of him. He went to ground a week ago and no one has seen him since."

"Of course."

Aria smirked, "Look on the bright side, they aren't parading his corpse through the streets yet so maybe you'll get lucky."

"What exactly did he do to piss them all off?"

"The same thing people like him always do, upset the balance. Things work on Omega. The way they work doesn't sit well with white knights like Archangel. So they try to change them, but Omega doesn't care if one turian doesn't like the way things work. So he started to mess with the status quo, horn in on Eclipse's smuggling, the Sun's protection rackets, and the Blood Pack being the Blood Pack. Surprise, surprise, the heavily armed mercs used to getting their way pushed back."

"What's your stance on this?"

"I don't care. Archangel is too busy helping the poor and down trodden with what the mercs do. Simple vices like I provide are too pedestrian for his attention. As for the mercs, they're big boys. If they can't handle one little turian sticking his mandibles where they don't belong then someone will take them out and they'll play ball with me the same way the others did."

"Just like that?" Alyssa asked skeptically.

"Just. Like. That," Aria said back. "I am Omega Shepard, nothing happens on this station that I don' t know about and Omega is the closest thing to a central hub the Terminus has. So if these two bit mercs want to keep working out here they can either get in line, or someone else will beat them into it. There is one rule out here Shepard," she said turning to look at Alyssa through harshly drawn eyes, "Don't. Fuck. with Aria."

Shepard snorted, "Right."

Aria shook her head slowly. "Go get your Salarian, and see if there's anything left to collect of the turian. Either way, get what you're here for and get off my station. Omega has no use for you Shepard, and neither do I."

"It's been a pleasure," Alyssa sneered.

Aria went back to looking out over her club and ignored her.

Miranda and Jacob were still standing where she'd left them, staring down a couple of Aria's replacement guards who looked distinctly nervous when Alyssa's eyes swept over them.

"Well, it worked," Miranda stated.

"Partially," Alyssa corrected. "She doesn't know Archangel's where abouts."

"Still, better off then we were," Jacob added as they walked down the ramp and started to leave the club. "What the hell happened back there?"

"I don't like being scanned," she said as she flipped one of the door guard's teeth out of the way with the tip of her boot.

**V-V**

It only took a few minutes prowling through Omega's streets for Alyssa to start comparing it to the Phoenix mega-plex where she had grown up. Dingy streets, desperate people, the stink of unmanaged garbage in the air. There was one huge different though, Phoenix at least had the towering skyscrappers, glinting in the desert sun to give the appearance of being of a symbol of wealth and prosperity. Omega was just the slums of Phoenix, and nothing but the slums of Phoenix.

Even that brought some insight though. Even though most of its residents were aliens to her she was still able to pick out the old familiar patterns. The way power flowed through the people, who was on top, who wasn't, who wanted to be, and who just wanted to be left alone. It was something she was familiar with, and something she never wanted to see again.

The main elevator down was in a market half a kilometers walk from Afterlife. It was a busy, bustling place full of people but they all maintained a respectful distance. In a place like Omega without any law disputes about pickpocketing or even just invading personal space could wind up being settled with pistols.

Merchants hocked their wares from stalls built from pieces of debris or alcoves hollowed out of the station walls both rock and metal. Some tried to disguise the origins of their places of business with colorful fabrics or bright neon lights but they weren't fooling anyone. They were loud, pushy, and willing to say anything to get your attention for even a split second.

The familiarity only served to make her mood worse though. She'd put the slums of Phoenix, and what she'd had to do to survive in them, behind her. Or so she'd thought, they had an unnerving way of finding her again and again to remind her just where she came from.

"Yeah, I knew Shepard."

Alyssa's ears perked up at the mention of her name, and they way it had been said. She turned towards a nearby stall that was selling electronics and the wall of vid monitors it was using to attract customers. On some of the screens there was a news report from the Alliance, Westerlund News according to the tag line. The reporter's name caught her eye, Khalisah Bint Sinan al Jilani, and even with his face obscured Alyssa could still discern the identity of one of the lieutenant's from her former gang. The deep scar in his chin gave him away. He'd just assumed when he'd come to beat her for disobeying on of his orders that she'd take it. The brass knuckles she'd had on her had put that theory to rest, and left a lasting imprint on his chin. He was only identified as a, 'Leader of the Tenth Street Reds.'

"What was the commander like," al Jilani asked him.

"Lissy?"

God she loathed that nickname.

"Lissy was a nasty little bitch," she said with a gruffy synthesized chuckle. "Best drug runner and hitter we had back then though. Couldn't tell you how many keys of red sand she ran right under the cop's noses back in the day."

"She ran red sand?"

"Sure, red sand, e, everything. She had a real knack for it."

"And a hitter is and enforcer," Khalisah prompted.

"If you wanna get fancy about it, yeah. Lissy made sure the other gangs couldn't horn in on our territory and kicked out the ones in our way. She had a knack for knowing how to get rid of people in her way."

Alyssa's entire body was starting to shiver in rage. "I should've killed the bitch."

On screen al Jilani was moving on, "So she ran drugs and acted as an enforcer, any thing else?"

"Nothin' major, help with the protection rackets, rode herd on the whores when they needed it. Heh, Lissy used to love to take her cut from them on their backs if you get my drift," the slovenly gangbanger chuckled evilly.

For her part Khalisah just let the camera and interview linger on that point for a few moments before moving on. "So did the news that Commander Shepard appears to be working with Cerberus surprise you?"

"Hell no, the Reds are all about humanity. Lissy's just keeping true to her heritage. She never did like the way aliens were trying to horn in on our business."

The interview faded out and was replaced by Kahlisah standing on a ground level street corner in Phoenix's slums, incredibly out of place with her perfectly coiffed hair and expensive business dress. "That was an earlier interview with a local leader of the Tenth Street Reds, a gang from Phoenix who have in recent years expanded across the Americas and even to other worlds. It would appear that these former compatriots of the Commander were not shocked at all by her recent appearance in a Cerberus propaganda piece. Khalisah Bint Sinan al Jilani reporting from Phoenix for Westerlund News."

Miranda looked at Jacob as Alyssa's eyes continued to bore holes in the vid screen even as it moved to showing some turian program in their own shrieking, hissing, language. They both kept glancing furtively at each other until Alyssa turned on her heel and started to march off as the elevator to the lower levels was visible ahead.

As they edged around the last shop they could hear a batarian protestlyzing from atop a shipping crate, speaking out to the gathered masses about galactic purity and how it must be protected in light of the coming darkness. It was only as their group drew near that the makeshift priest stabbed one of his calloused fingers at Shepard and howled, "You! Human! You and your race are a blight on galactic purity!"

Before Miranda could fire back with a quip of her own or even try to distract Alyssa her heavy pistol was out of it's holster on her left hip. The Spectre held it with ease, her eyes never straying from her path as she held the gun in her right hand, across her body as the huge hand gun boomed and pink tinged blood and gray bone chips fountained from the batarian's shoulder as the impact and it's shock sent him tumbling backwards from his perch and sent the assembled crowd running.

"The feelings mutual," she growled.

**V-V**

Author's Notes

Feedback: bsmartfanfic at yahoo.com

1) I love fish, Alyssa likes fish. A big fish tank on a supposed warship is still fucking stupid however. I couldn't help myself, I had to point it out. Then again Shepard has an apart twice the size of what the entire rest of the crew has to live in.

2) So yes, I tweaked the SR-2's layout a good bit. Sue me.


	7. Chapter 7: Caffeine

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect and I do not begrudge them it at all.

**V-V**

Chapter 7: Caffeine

**V-V**

The two turians who had been guarding the door sighed in relief as the doors closed behind Alyssa and her companions but that was the moment that Alyssa exploded at them.

"DAMN IT! Does everything you people touch turn to shit? Am I about to find out that I've got cancer or something because of what you did?" 

Jacob backed away but Miranda stood her ground. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Bad enough the council and the alliance both got to see that little recruitment vid you put me in but now it's gotten picked up! I've got worthless pieces of filth like the Reds cheering me on! I've got that bitch of a reporter doing her best to smear me as a member of Cerberus!"

"I'm sure the Illusive Man never meant for that vid...,"

"Bullshit!" Alyssa raged, bringing her face inches from Miranda. "That's bullshit and you know it! The only reason he put it out was so that everyone, EVERYONE could see me with you!"

"Shepard, the only thing Cerberus stands for is protecting humanity and our interests," Miranda stated again coldly. "I don't see what the problem is."

"Because you're fucking monsters," she snarled. "I've seen what you do and 'protecting humanity' sure does seem to leave a lot of dead human bodies in your wake."

"Accidents happen, mistakes are made, and sometimes cells go rogue," Miranda said back.

"When a responsible researcher makes a mistake it doesn't kill everyone in his lab!"

"We're pushing the bounds of science, it's not always safe." 

"To what end? What could you have accomplished with the ridiculous shit you do?"

Miranda's face was impassive as she deadpanned, "We brought you back."

Alyssa's left cheek twitched ash her jaw clenched.

Jacob drew a little closer when Miranda stopped her roll. "Shepard, please. Keep an open mind. You've got people working with you that believe in you, that are only interested in stopping the collectors and protecting innocent lives. You've got control, and we mean it. Miranda's not wrong, the rogue cells you ran into, that's not Cerberus."

"I've got an asari partner. I want to have an asari wife. Some of my best friends were turian, quarian, and krogan. Do you know what it feels like to know they're going to see that report or something like it? To know they'll see groups like the Reds or Earth First crowing about how I'm working with you? Do you know what it's like to know that the people you worked with in the Alliance are going to see that? People I care about are going to be thinking I'm a traitor and you know what? I'm not sure they're wrong. So take your rogue cells, your protecting humanity garbage, and blow them out your ass Mr. Taylor."

After that Alyssa drifted to one side of the elevator and Miranda and Jacob to the other, neither side saying much of anything to the other for the remainder of the trip. Which wasn't very long as despite Omega's overall appearance someone evidently took care of the elevators. The display over the door announced that they had arrived at their destination.

If the upper portions of Omega were a refuse bin for sapient species then brown sector was hell. The first impression any of them got of it was the smell. The noxious odor of burning flesh came rolling in as soon as the doors were cracked open. It was a smell that Alyssa was used to, but not in this quantity.

Outside the elevator was a courtyard, but makeshift barriers had been constructed out of everything someone could get their hands on. Tables, shipping crates, even an old aircar, had been piled into a barricade that armed mercs in blue armor patrolled. Every one of them had a full hard suit and their helmets on.

"Blue Suns," Jacob confirmed.

A turian with an elaborate rank insignia was heading towards them already, attracted by the opening elevator. "I don't know what the hell you're on," he started, "but I hope it's worth it because you are not going back up."

"What's going on here?" Miranda asked.

"Quarantine, of which you are now part," the Turian said.

"Looks a little heavily armed for a quarantine," Alyssa said as her eyes scanned the barricades.

"People get desperate when there's a plague going around. Anything less and we'd be over run and they'd be carrying this topside. Again, you aren't going back."

Jacob frowned. "I thought humans were immune?"

"Doesn't mean you can't carry it."

"What's the situation?" Alyssa asked.

"Ugly, the virus has already killed about twenty five percent of the population down here. Most of the rest are quarantining themselves, trying not to get infected. Who knows how many of them are still alive. If you see anyone out on the streets they're probably a looter, or a human. Same thing at this point."

"What's the catch?"

The turian's shook his head. "The Blood Pack. Thought they could use this to help oust us outta Brown Sector and take over. The whole virus thing went right over their heads. If it was up to me I'd let them have it, but then we'd have bored krogan and vorcha in charge of maintaining the quarantine."

"I don't think that would turn out well," Miranda sneered.

"Not likely, but it hasn't kept them from trying. The problem is with the place on lockdown they've got no one to extort, can't move easily to regroup with one another, and have settled on just causing as much trouble as they can, and a bunch of vorcha and enraged krogans can do a lot."

"We're looking for Dr. Solus' clinic, where can we find it?"

"Same place it's always been," the turian replied. "That way," he said with a finger pointed behind him. "That's also where the blood pack is, the looters are, and the worst of the outbreak is. Have fun." The turian turned to the barricade, "Let'em through." And a section of the barricade was slid to the side. "Oh," he said as they turned to leave. "Looters are still shot on sight."

"Understood," Miranda replied as they exited the barricade and were confronted by the reality of life in brown sector. The corridor-cum-street was lined with large planters, probably someones attempt to bring a little life, a little greenery to the place. Someone a bit more practical had turned the large ferro-crete planters into funeral pyres. Bodies were piled up five and six deep in them and set ablaze. All three of them unlimbered submachine guns as they began to move out.

"Plague control right out of the middle ages," Miranda commented as they walked past.

"Yeah, but what about the slob who had to carry them there?" Jacob asked.

"What do you think happened," Alyssa scoffed.

Near the barrier things didn't look all that bad. Run down, unkempt, and more or less abandoned, but aside from the burning bodies it wasn't that different from when the Suns won the championship back home, or the Lakers if you added in the bodies. However the farther they walked the worse it got. Businesses and residences were no longer just closed, they were boarded up, trending towards barricaded. They even started to see some with written warnings across them, most of them some variation on, "Plague inside, keep out." A few were even welded shut, though whether to keep the sick in or others out she mercifully didn't know.

Funeral pyres gave way to dead bodies rotting in the streets. The residents too scared for their own lives to come out and dispose of them in even the most basic of ways. Evidence of looting started to mount, display windows smashed in, doors ripped from their hinges. There was even scattered indications of weapons fire. Alyssa fervently hoped it was evidence of the victimized fighting back and not their victimizers just having a fun. For twenty minutes they moved through the streets and corridors of a ghost town. A few times Alyssa thought she spotted movement but whoever had been there, if there had been anyone at all, had vanished.

"We're getting close to a courtyard," Miranda said as she consulted her omni-tool.

"Good place for an ambush," Alyssa observed. They all pulled up short behind a divider wall that projected out into the street. Ahead they could see the courtyard where it opened up. Another corridor faux-street intersected here and they'd widened the intersection with benches and meeting areas around a central, well she assumed it was sculpture. It might have been a half decent place at one point but now all the shops around it were shuttered and litter and a few bodies were strewn around. Two of the bodies were in blue armor and whatever had killed them had first blown a series of ragged holes in their chest plates.

Alyssa returned her submachine gun to her thigh holster as she unlimbered her rifle. She looked around until she spotted a storefront that had been smashed in. Using hand signals she pointed it out and all three of them moved out from behind the planter and as quickly and quietly as they could. Inside the store was still mostly shuttered but a set of stairs led up and they took them, staying low when they reached the top but moving towards the open windows that overlooked the courtyard. The shop's upper area extended out over the street below sitting them right over street that intersected the one that had just been on.

As Alyssa and Miranda peered over the wall Jacob took stock of their surroundings. "Does anyone else hear that?"

"Hear what?" Miranda asked.

It was at this moment that a rocket screeched by underneath them and exploded against the statue in the middle of the intersection. As if it was some kind of signal the far side of the intersection exploded in gunfire from the wreck store fronts and from behind planters and anything remotely solid, all of it directed down the street they were directly perched over.

"So much for checking for an ambush," Alyssa groused as she took cover behind the shop's wall.

It was obvious though that the ambushers were firing blind and wildly with little real aim. Many stray shots were chipping the ferrocrete off the wall they were hiding behind as their firer's shots went hopelessly awry. In contrast the fire being returned towards them was measure, aimed, almost professional.

A wave of rockets followed the first lone one and blanketed the area. They had no real hope of dislodging the ambushers but that had never been the point. The horde of rockets was only meant to keep their heads down and it worked beautifully. Fire from the ambushers slackened to almost nothing while the rocketeer's faction's fire increased exponentially.

Alyssa glanced down quickly and saw blue armor moving up below them. "Someone tried to ambush the Blue Suns."

"Vorcha," Jacob added. "Lots of'em, starting to move."

"Blood Pack then," Alyssa answered.

The Blue Suns advanced with some skill, taking up positions in the street and trying to catch the Blood Pack in a cross fire and appeared to be succeeding, initially. Even as the return fire on the Suns was slackening and they were getting ready for another hard move on their ambushers there was a bellowing roar from a side street. A hulking form encased in armor the color of dried blood thundered out into the street. The krogan roared something unintelligible and dozens of vorcha began to swarm around him and pour into the street.

The Blue Suns were caught in the open, moving between positions when the vorcha rushed out. A few managed to dive for cover but a quarter of them were caught flat footed between cover and while individually the vorcha's aim was worse than a butter bars lieutenant's fresh out of the academy, when there were this many of them firing in the same direction the laws of probability started to work against you. Half the exposed mercenaries went down and stayed there, permanently, while the other half got out of the killing zone, but Alyssa didn't see a single one make it without taking a lot of fire.

The vorcha's weapons were a hodge podge of whatever they appeared to have found laying around. Old model assault rifles and shotguns, a few light missile launchers and even a couple of flame throwers. What they lacked for in skill the vorcha made up in enthusiasm, charging forward with little regard for danger. The Blue Suns were able to exploit this, downing quite a few of them but it wasn't enough. The vorcha swarmed forward, driving the Suns out of cover with a mixture of grenades, knives, and even a few flamethrowers who's operators seemed to care little for their fellow vorcha's well being as they gleefully hosed the area down with burning hydrocarbons.

In a matter of seconds the Suns had gone from assured of victory to a full on rout. The back ranks tried to give the front runners cover but the vorcha continued to happily ignore the incoming fire to fall upon the Blue Suns trooper closest to them. Crude knives flashed between mass driver rounds as the unfortunate troopers found themselves being hacked apart. The krogan was joined by another and both of them directed the vorcha and added to the carnage with their own weapons as the Blood Pack drove the Blue Suns back and out of sight.

"How pointless can you get, a turf war over a plague zone," Miranda groused.

"If they were smart they wouldn't be mercs," Alyssa answered back. The sounds of the battle started to diminish as the vorcha and their krogan masters chased what remained of the platoon of Blue Suns off. "This is our chance, lets get by them while they're distracted."

The sounds of the rout continued to diminish as they descended back down out of the building and moved quickly through the street, stepping over the bodies as they went. There were more vorcha than Blue Suns by a wide margin but that was the point of cannon fodder, clog the enemy's guns with your dead. They had just turned the corner out of the square to be on their way when they ran head on into a second wave of vorcha led by a krogan. "Oh hell," Alyssa muttered as she and her companions came to a screeching halt.

The krogan and the vorcha had their ire up and weren't being picky about their targets. Alyssa, Miranda, and Jacob were armed and in the right place so the vorcha were already bringing up their weapons before their krogan master ever bellowed out his orders. Alyssa was quicker though and her heavy machine gun was up and thundering out mass driver rounds first. There was little need to aim, the vorcha were close and bunched together so she settled for spraying their front ranks with fire even as she, Jacob, and Miranda all bolted for a side street.

The vorcha at the front of their pack went to pieces as Alyssa's fire started to hit them. Slender bodies with no armor could do little to stop mass driver rounds meant to kill armored soldiers with kinetic barriers and they paid a heavy price as purplish red ichor splattered the walls.

"Move!" Alyssa yelled as they sprinted down the side street. The shock of her opening volley had worn off and the vorcha were starting to open fire, the horrible deaths of their comrades hardly phasing them at all. Alyssa exchanged her rifle for her submachine guns so she could keep moving as they ran through the narrow corridor/street and ducked through back alleys. The vorcha were hot on their heels and the skittering of claws on metal kept getting louder as they started to reel the humans in.

She risked a glance back over her shoulder and saw that the vorcha were even closer than she gave them credit for, only ten or fifteen meters behind her. When she turned back she almost ran into Miranda as both her and Jacob had stopped dead in the street.

"Down Shepard," Miranda called as her hands glowed blue with swirling biotic energy.

Alyssa didn't question them and dove headfirst towards the deck as she felt the familiar tug of a biotic field on the world around her. She rolled onto her back as Miranda and Jacob both sent biotic blasts down the narrow alley that bowled the vorcha over. Jacob offered his hand to Alyssa and helped her stand before they all took off again in the claustrophobic bowels of Omega with Miranda and her omni-tool leading the way. The Blood Pack was not so easily dissuaded though, dogging their progress at every turn, never letting them rest for even a moment. If there was any bright spot to their situation though it was that with everyone barricaded in their homes it left the streets blessedly clear and their progress was swift.

"Only a few more bulkhead's," Miranda informed them as they jogged up a set of stairs. They had been moving so quickly and worried about the Blood Pack that Alyssa was caught off guard by the announcement. She made one more quick scan of the area behind them just as a pair of security mechs stepped out into their path and leveled submachine guns at them.

"Halt."

Alyssa grimaced. Flat footed and with her back to them there wasn't much she could do that wouldn't begin with her taking several rounds to the back at shorter range than she was comfortable with.

"Wait, wait," an older balding man in a nurse's uniform appeared around the corner. "They're not Blood Pack and I don't think they're Blue Suns either."

Alyssa turned slowly around keeping her guns pointed at the floor. "No, we're not."

"Then who are you and why are you here?" He asked. Neither of the bots had moved though but neither was aiming their weapons at Shepard and her group anymore, tradeoffs.

Alyssa shouldered past Miranda and Jacob to stand at the top of the stairs right in front of the nurse. "Commander Shepard, Council Spectre. I need to speak with Dr. Solus."

"The Doctor is busy," the nurse said curtly. "But we'll see if he's got time. Put the guns away though. If you cause trouble the Doctor may take care of you himself."

That comment made the group look at each other skeptically but they did as they were told and followed the nurse in after the mechs stepped aside. The side street that led to the clinic was devoid of many more doors but as they passed Alyssa could see more security mechs stashed in various small recesses in the walls or hidden behind low walls. Her military mind noted the slightly winding way the path was laid out that limited lines of sight, and how substantial most of the dividing walls were to prevent ground vehicles from being able to advance. Even the stairs up to the alleyway ensured that no air cars could just bypass it all.

The interior of the clinic was dim and the entrance was claustrophobic at only a meter wide. It opened up a bit where the wall had been cut away between the entrance way and another room leaving only a waist high counter but on the other side were half a dozen security mechs and their handler. "You take security seriously here."

"We have to," the nurse answered. "When this was just a clinic the Suns wanted protection money. When they found out who the Doctor was they tried to force him to work for them. It only got worse when the plague started because they wanted him to synthesize a cure and then give it to them so they could sell it. Now in the last few days the Blood Pack is starting to sniff around. If the Doctor didn't take it seriously we'd be turned into a triage center for wounded mercs and be forced to make a cure for them so they could profiteer off it."

"If they even waited for an actual cure or just started selling anything they could so long as it looked legitimate," Miranda observed.

"Exactly," the nurse confirmed as they turned another corner and came out into a waiting room with a more conventional reception desk. "We're here to help people, not help the mercs help themselves. They're half the reason for the misery down here when we DON'T have a plague going around."

The waiting room itself was full of people, turians, batarians, salarians, a few asari, and oddly enough two quarians. Most were just staring off into space, a few were sweating, many were moaning in pain, and a few had passed out.

"Is everyone here...," Alyssa started to ask.

"Everyone," the nurse confirmed.

Miranda shook her head. "How is that even possible? It's crossing racial lines?"

"Like they're not even there," the nurse said as he lead them into a room full of storage crates and several lab benches. "We've even got quarians who are sick and between their suits and sterilization procedures for their food..." He shook his head mournfully. "I have no idea how to stop this thing, but it's not even slowing the doctor down. I'll check on him, you wait here." He turned to leave then turned back, "But don't touch anything. Some of the stuff in this lab you can contract."

After he left Miranda turned to Alyssa and Jacob. "I have no idea how that's even possible. Some of the simplest and most basic viruses can cross the species lines between humans and asari but only the most basic. You can't even transmit a virus between either of those species and a salarian, forget having something that will infect dextro species as well, you can't even do that with a bacterium."

"Someone figured it out," Jacob said.

"But who?"

"A deadly virus capable of jumping species and killing just about every alien race but that doesn't infect humans," Alyssa stared right at Miranda. "I know who's on my short list."

Miranda's fashion model face was screwing up in a rage but before she could unload the nurse returned. "He can see you."

Alyssa let Miranda stew as she brushed past her and followed the nurse. She could hear faint but rapid mumbling coming from the room he was leading them too.

A salarian with one broken horn was working in a treatment room with multiple beds. He was looking over the readout's of a batarian's bed, stroking his chin as he muttered and mumbled medical jargon to quickly for Alyssa to follow. The general gist appeared to be looking for a cure that would work for all species without killing one or more of them. The particulars were utterly beyond her though.

"Professor Mordin Solus?" She asked.

The salarian looked up from his readouts and came towards her, saying nothing but lighting up his omni tool and scanning Alyssa and the others so quickly her hand had barely wrapped around the grip of her pistol before he was already consulting the results.

"Hmm, don't recognize you from the area. Too-well armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect." He turned his back on them, muttering to himself and completely ignoring them. "Here for something else? Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom not a cause."

He turned on his heels and considered Alyssa and her companions with a detached clinical eye, speaking about them as if they weren't in the room with him and able to hear everything. Her eye started to twitch.

"The plague? Investigating possible use as bio-weapon? No. Too many guns, not enough data equipment. Soldiers, not scientists." He grabbed a nearby data terminal and continued. "Yes, yes. Hired guns, maybe? Looking for someone? Yes! But who? Someone important? Valuable. Someone with secrets. Someone like me?"

Alyssa stepped forward, "Breathe damn it, before you pass out! I'm Commander Shepard and I came here to find you. We need you to help with a critical mission."

"Mission? What mission? No. Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?" he asked as he bent down to retrieve some bit of medical gadgetry.

"It's a uhh, covert and privately funded human organization," she replied immediately regretting adding the bit about humans. There were passing few human organizations with a positive outlook on human/alien relations.

The salarian stood up quickly. "Related to plague? Plague doesn't affect humans. Human centric interests. Few human groups would know me. Equipment suggests military origin. Not alliance standard. Spectres, not human. Terra Firma too unstable,'" he prattled on as he moved about his lab. "Only one option." He stood and faced them. "Cerberus sent you. Unexpected."

The grimace on Alyssa's face said it all. "You're very well informed. How'd a salarin scientist on the ass end of the galaxy hear about Cerberus?"

"Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans."

"They usually do. Circumstances have changed. The collectors are attacking human colonies."

Mordin stroked his chin. "Collectors? Interesting. Plague hitting these slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with technology to do it. Our goals may be similar. But, must stop plague first. Have a cure. Must distribute from environmental control center." He started to type out something on a work station. "Vorcha guarding it. Need to kill them."

"I'll get in and deal with the Vorcha."

It was that moment that the ever present whine of the ventilation ducts ceased with a loud grind and the end of the hiss.

"That wasn't a good noise," Jacob observed.

"Shut down environmental systems," Mordin said. "Trying to kill everyone. Need to get power back on before district suffocates. Here, take my cure. One more thing. Daniel, my assistant. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victims. hasn't come back."

"If we see him we'll do what we can."

"Thank you. Told him not to go. Bright future. I hope."

**V-V**

"Just once, once in my life I would love for someone to tell me, 'Sure, I'll help. Let's go. Right now. No strings attached," Alyssa groused as they left the clinic.

Her companions ignored her complaining. "Alright, so we get the ventilation working and distribute the cure. Seems easy enough," Miranda said.

"It's never that easy," Alyssa muttered. "They've got help on the inside and whoever is helping won't take kindly to us undoing their virus."

"Then they'll just have to have their feelings hurt," Jacob said confidently.

Alyssa stared at him for a moment before nodding and standing up herself. They left through the back door of the clinic, which led them into a more residential area. Apartment buildings or blocks rose up on all sides of the streets. Most were boarded up, closed, or vacant just as they had been before the clinic but evidence of another presence was starting to mount. Kicked in doors, smashed windows, the contents of apartments or the few small shops about strewn on the street. The farther they went the worse the damage became and they could see no evidence of anyone still being here. Then again given the damage it wasn't likely anyone was crazy enough to stay or if they had, well it's easier to loot when the former owner isn't alive to dispute your claim.

As they passed by an apartment block Alyssa heard something she hadn't expected though, the faint sound of voices. Very angry and very agitated voices. "Someone's still here," Alyssa said as she ducked to the side of the street and through a set of doors that had been pried open. She stowed her rifle and unlimbered her shotgun as she peeked in the broken doors.

"Fresh bootprints," Jacob said as he knelt down. "No dust or soot in them yet."

Alyssa nodded as she made her way into the apartment building. The shouting could now clearly be heard coming from upstairs and the three slowly and carefully climbed the stairs keeping their weapons up and ready. It wasn't clear what was being said though as the doors and walls were muffling the words but the tone was very agitated and very angry and they could just hear another, quieter voice of someone in distress.

Alyssa stowed her rifle and unlimbered her heavy pistol. She kept her footfalls light as she moved up the stairway towards an open door where the sounds were originating from. To her surprise when she stopped just beside the door and held her hand up to signal them to stop and stack up behind her both her companions did without saying a word.

"It's a cure. Why would I be here trying to infect anyone? This place is deserted!"

"Humans are immune," a second voice answered in the gruff bass tinged with high pitched reverberation that Alyssa associated with batarians. Long vocal cords and a long narrow nasal cavity did odd things to your voice. "You're not here looting but you've got this? We've caught you redhanded!"

"Just kill the bastard," another batarian voice snarled.

Alyssa's hand snapped forward and she turned the corner into the room, sweeping it with her eyes and her pistol. It was a simply studio apartment, living area and bed to the right, kitchen and dining area to the left. A long, middle aged, slightly balding man in a white lab tech's scrubs stood to the right with his hands up, his eyes widening at the sight of Alyssa and to the left were three batarians, all of them armed but none of them with their weapons up. Their dress didn't suggest military or mercs but they were armed and threatening to kill this man, who she supposed was Mordin's wayward assistant. Given that he wasn't armed she wasn't feeling particularly forgiving and when one of the batarians started to raise his shotgun she fired.

The pistol boomed six times, deafening in the small space as Jacob and Miranda entered and tried to assess the situation. "Clear," Alyssa said as the last batarian slumped to the floor. She walked towards them, looking them over as she heard the man start to stutter.

"You killed them. You just... you killed them."

"Yeah, so?" Alyssa asked as she nudged the batarian's pistols and shotguns away from their dead bodies. She frowned at her own shot placement. In spite of her best efforts neither of the rounds she fired at each of them had hit where she'd meant them too. The saving grace was they all still hit their heads or upper torso and with a pistol as large as her customized paladin that was close enough.

"They were just scared and it was a misunderstanding!" he stammered. "You didn't even give them a chance you just killed them in cold blood!"

Alyssa turned back towards him with a raised eyebrow. "Why would I give them a chance?"

Before things could escalate farther Miranda slipped between him and Alyssa. "David I presume?"

"Yes," he said as his eyes left Shepard for Miranda and then looked her up and down.

"We're working with Dr. Solus, he's concerned about you."

"I was trying to distribute the cure," he explained. "I just ducked in here to rest for a minute and then these batarians came in and assumed the worst..."

"We understand," Miranda said.

Alyssa wondered over to the counter and picked up one of the vials that was sticking out of the top of David's case. "We can take it from here," she said. "The route back to the clinic is clear."

"Of course," David said.

Alyssa went back to the batarians and pried the pistol out of one of their hands before offering it butt first to David. "You might wanna take this with you, just in case."

David looked down at the gun laconicly, still stunned from what had happened before he realized what he was being offered and recoiled. "I'm a doctor, a healer," he snapped. "I don't kill people, I help them." He glared daggers at Alyssa before turning on his heels and leaving.

"He's gonna wind up dead," Alyssa muttered.

Jacob glanced at her. "He's a doctor Shepard."

"Ok, he'll be a dead doctor," she replied as she stripped the rails from the batarian's weapons and dropped them in a pouch at her side. As Jacob collected the vials of cure David had left. None of them said much as they continued on deeper into the bowels of Omega. Along the way Alyssa dumped the rails off on the side of the street.

A few blocks later they encountered their first resistance, groups of vorcha who opened fire without asking a question or making a demand. Shotguns and assault rifles bellowed and roared but for such an impressive weight of fire the vorcha put out they were few results. Their aim was horrible and their lack of real armor or shielding almost made Alyssa pity them as the three of them worked together to mow the vorcha down, almost.

The steady fire fight and push towards the atmospheric controls energized Alyssa. As vorcha poured from every crack and crevice in the terrain around them the doubts and frustrations that Alyssa had felt piling up on her started to melt away. Combat was familiar, it was simple. It reduced the world to targets and friendlies and it was something she could deal with. Her aim was still horrible by her standards but the thump of her rifle against her shoulder was an old friend.

Even when they started to reactivate the fans and the vorcha started to pelt them with rocket fire it didn't hamper her steadily rising mood. Moving from cover to cover she'd flank the vorcha when they stayed still too long, slip away from their clumsy encirclements, and take out their rocketeers one at a time. Even Jacob and Miranda ceased to be Cerberus to her for a time, instead becoming simply friendlies that aided her.

When in desperation the vorcha brought out the flame throwers she just grinned as she pumped rounds into the pressurized tanks of flammables the spindly little goblins wore making them explode in satisfying fireballs. This was her element, it was what she was born to do and the adrenaline and endorphin rush of feeling in control again got to her head so when they approached the door to the second control room and the vorcha's krogan leader came charging out she stood her ground instead of giving of, her old rifle slamming out it's oversize rounds as the two legged dinosaur rushed her.

It was when the Krogan was only a meter from the end of her rifle she realized she had made a huge mistake. She cast her rifle aside and was drawing her pistol as the big lizard ran right into her.

**V-V**

"Shepard!" Miranda screamed as the running krogan bowled into the woman she's spent two years and billions of other people's money to bring back from the dead. Shepard wasn't a small woman by any means once the krogan hit her she disappeared behind a wall of blood red armor. There was a struggle, gun shots including the krogan's shotgun until the big beast tripped and fell flat on the floor, on top of Alyssa.

As Jacob finished off the last of the vorcha Miranda sprinted towards the heap of unmoving krogan and his human target. Dark viscous blood was already pooling under the bodies and the barrel of the korgan's shotgun was smoking off to the side of it's body. Jacob came running up behind her. "Jesus, Shepard...," he muttered.

"Get this fucking lizard off me!" came the muffled reply from under the krogan.

Miranda and Jacob both pushed and after a lot of straining managed to roll the krogan to the side enough so that Alyssa could slither out, using her free arm to help them roll the krogan completely over. "That was a stupid fucking thing to do," Alyssa muttered as she scooted back against a column and sat up.

Miranda could see several fresh holes in the krogan's armor over his gut and one of Shepard's knives was buried in the side of the krogan's neck. The twenty centimeter gash she'd ripped in his hide was the source of the blood that was pooling on the floor plating and positively covering the commander's chest. The left side of her face had a flash burn on it, likely evidence of the krogan's final shot.

"Are you hurt?" Miranda asked.

"I had a krogan fall on me, everything hurts," she said as she holstered her pistol and started working the knife out of the krogan's neck.

"She means anything broken, shot..." Jacob clarified.

Alyssa looked at him and then back at Miranda. "Where did you find this guy?"

**V-V**

Author's Notes

Feedback: bsmartfanfic yahoo.com

1) Sue me, I cut out the gaming equivalent of 30 minutes of random encounters and shooting space goblins. It doesn't fucking matter.


	8. ME3: Tiptree

Mass Effect 3: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect.

Author's Note: There are significant **spoilers** to the ME2 portion of this story in here. If you care about that don't read any further. If you don't, go for it.

VOV

TipTree

VOV

"What's eating Joker?" James asked from where he stood beside Alyssa and Kelly near their workstations.

"Huh?" Alyssa asked distractedly.

"Joker, something's wrong with him. You ain't noticed Lola?"

Alyssa glanced up towards the cockpit. "Can't say I have."

"I ripped on the Normandy, all he said was, 'Do I come down to the cargo bay and insult your weights?' I mean really, Joker?"

Alyssa frowned.

"Joker was receiving regular communiqués from his home planet until recently. He's been checking in regularly with Alliance command."

James and Alyssa both looked at Kelly. "You reading my e-mail red?" he asked.

"No, no," Kelly said quickly, "I'm just checking in on comm traffic. I don't read any of them."

"I thought Traynor was in charge of comms," Vega pushed.

"She is, I just keep tabs in case the commander needs to know anything."

"That right Lola?"

"Thanks, Kelly," Alyssa snarked.

"You reading them then?"

"I would if you ever said anything interesting," Alyssa snarked. "What's going on with Tiptree?"

Kelly quickly checked her workstation and the galaxy map zoomed in on a system not far from Eden Prime. "Tiptree was quiet but about a week ago the Reapers landed forces in the system. The size of their force wasn't gauged to be an immediate threat to taking the planet, just a diversion to siphon off resources. The Alliance has started evacuations and ground forces are engaged but so far nothing major."

"And that's where Joker's from?" Vega asked.

"It is, but the bulk of the fighting was removed from where his home is."

Alyssa mulled this over while looking at the galaxy map. Their current flight path was skimming the galactic core heading for Terminus space. Aria wanted help on Omega and with the politicians trying to talk things to death she found herself with a bit of time on her hands. Not much, but some.

"Next time a crew member's home is invaded let me know please," Alyssa said with a sigh. She knew why it had been filtered out but it didn't make it any easier to deal with. She quickly wiped her station clean. "I'll talk to him James, see what's eating him. Tell Cortez to make sure at least one of the shuttles is put back together and to get everything ready to go."

"You thinking about making a detour Lola?"

"Just do your job James," Alyssa said with a smirk and a jerk of her head towards the elevator. There were no real hard feelings there she just wished she could get a 'Yes ma'am, right away ma'am,' out of someone in her crew. When he turned away she looked over at Kelly who was typing furiously on console. She slid up close to her and leaned in to glance at what she was typing but Kelly had swiped that window off her screen and Alyssa didn't push. "It's fine Kelly," she said softly.

"I should have known you'd want to know about something like that."

"That someone's homeworld had been invaded? Kelly, everyone's homeworld has been invaded. Joker was the odd duck out and the fighting was well removed from his family. It's alright."

"I'm supposed to anticipate those sort of requests. I should have known better."

"Kelly," Alyssa said quietly as she wrapped an arm around her lover's waist. "You're doing fine. You're the only reason this motley collection of maniacs is even a functioning team. Without you they'd have all killed each other a year ago."

The little redhead sighed. "Alright, but I won't let it happen again."

"Good attitude," Alyssa said. She gave Kelly an affection pop on her shapely little rear. "And if you're still beating yourself up over it tonight me and Liara will give you a good spanking."

"Promise?" Kelly said hopefully. 

Alyssa started to smile broadly. "You know me. Now get our blueberry on the line and tell her to start shaking her contacts down for anything they've got on Tiptree. I've gotta go talk to Joker"

Alyssa untangled herself from her lover and started to stalk down the command deck towards the cockpit. Sadly the Alliance had done nothing to fix the turian architecture of the bridge so any face to face meeting with her pilot meant hiking half the length of the ship. Turians might prefer the high, officious, able to observe it all position near the back of the deck but she'd kill for a human CIC where everything was tight, close, at your fingertips. If you wanted to know what someone was up to or seeing you'd just turn your head a few degrees and look over their shoulder, not hail a taxi and pack a lunch for the trip to them. Still, it gave her some time to acknowledge the crew and exchange pleasantries with all of them. They were an odd mixture of Alliance techs who'd been modifying the Normandy when the Reapers attacked and the Cerberus crewmen who'd stayed with the ship when she'd told the Illusive man where to shove his dreams of human controlled Reapers, which was all of them. When she'd given them the chance to leave the ship after the Collector base not a single crewman had jumped ship. The Alliance might consider them ex-Cerberus but to her they were her crew and she'd be damned if she let anyone take them away.

As she got close to the cockpit EDI rose from her seat and started to walk towards her. Not surprising, while EDI's new body was a physical manifestation of her she was still really tucked down in the blueboxes behind the med-bay and the entire ship was still her. It was easy to forget that or that she had most likely been listening in on the entire conversation she had had with Vega and Kelly. She'd come to accept that EDI wasn't really a snoop, not in a malicious way, she was just not capable of not knowing everything about everybody.

To Alyssa's surprise though as soon as EDI stepped out of the cockpit the pressure doors that were normally left open slid quietly shut, far quieter than the doors on the ship usually worked. "Shepard," the metallic silver and matte black AI said as she approached.

"EDI," Alyssa acknowledged.

"You are concerned about Joker's mental well-being."

"I am," Alyssa admitted.

"As am I," EDI confirmed. "Uncommonly so."

"Uncommonly?" Alyssa asked.

"You are aware of Joker and I's relationship," EDI stated.

"Of course." Not that she couldn't be, when EDI had asked her about her and Joker Alyssa had encouraged her ship to spend time with her pilot, time beyond sitting in the cockpit, and they had. She'd seen them on the Citadel during a few of their layovers. She wondered what the rank and file thought of the two of them. Personal assistance robots weren't uncommon for those who modern medicine still had no cure. They weren't usually as expressive or as alluring as EDI though.

"Joker and his well-being already occupy a disproportionate amount of my processing cycles, beyond what I allocate to the other crewmen."

"I'll try not to take that personally."

EDI was used to Alyssa and continued on, "However Joker's current attitude is outside of established norms and I am at a loss for how to best return him to them."

"You want to cheer him up?"

"Yes." 

Alyssa grinned. "Have you tried kissing him?"

"Repeatedly."

Alyssa coughed. EDI wasn't the kind to embarrass easy, or at all. "Kelly said he hasn't received a letter from home in a bit."

"No, he has not. His queries to Alliance Command have been on the status of Tiptree and they have not updated their SITREP for his planet in eighteen hours."

"That's odd."

"It is," EDI confirmed. "The mean time between situation update after Reaper forces entered the system was twenty two point seven one minutes."

"Shit," Alyssa said under her breath.

"Jeff refuses to speak with me about this. He has not mentioned it at all but he has consulted our flight data three hundred and ninety six percent more often than is usual."

"Joker's not really one to share his feelings with others. He's a lot more comfortable joking around no matter how tense things are. He's probably not used to having a... girlfriend."

"I appreciate that, Shepard, however…" EDI paused and that caught Alyssa's attention. "I would prefer it if Jeff were to confide these things in me. I am not sure if that is appropriate or not given our relationship at this time."

"No, you're not wrong. If something was bothering Liara or Kelly I'd expect them to come to me with it first. That's sort of the way things work in a relationship. It's a partnership."

"Which causes me concern about the status of my relationship with Jeff."

Alyssa put her hand on the cool metallic skin of EDI's shoulder. "EDI, believe me, Joker isn't pulling away. You're about as close to his dream woman as possible. He's just… an asshole."

"Yes, he is."

Alyssa snorted. "I'll talk to him, see what's bothering him."

"Are you planning a detour to Tiptree? You instructed Mr. Vega to make sure a shuttle was prepared."

"God above I would kill for some privacy."

"Then you should not be romantically involved with the Shadow Broker, your ship's counselor, or have Mrs. Traynor as your comms officer or me as your ship."

"Yeah well at least I get to fuck Liara and Kelly."

EDI knew not to respond to Alyssa's grousing and stepped aside. Inside the cockpit Alyssa thumped the back of specialist Traynor's seat at her comms station. "Take a break specialist," Alyssa said. To her credit Traynor didn't say a word but slipped out after EDI and the cockpit's blast door slid shut at the AI's command. At least someone could follow orders around here.

Joker didn't move from his seat, or even acknowledge that he was now alone in the cockpit with Alyssa and she didn't force him to dropping her body into the port side seat across Joker from where EDI sat on starboard.

For a few quiet minutes Alyssa admired the star field as it whipped past at impossible velocity. Keeping Joker quiet was normally impossible but this time, nothing. Alyssa brought up a display near the chair and pulled up their navigation chart. "Twenty nine minutes to the Ceti Gamma relay."

"Yeah," Joker said.

"You taking the scenic route?"

"Five minutes faster than anyone else could do it."

"You sure? Still seems slow."

"Are you up here for a reason or are you just going to insult my flying?"

"Just waiting for you to get around to telling me what the hell's the matter. Or do you want me to start guessing?"

Joker snorted. "Yeah, you guess. You've got the Shadow Broker and the ship's shrink in your bed, Traynor on comms, and I'm sure my own ship has ratted me out. Guess my brittle ass."

"Talk to your girlfriend if you don't like her reading your e-mails," Alyssa said. "In fact just talk to her, she's worried about you, or maybe she just needs to be degaussed, either or."

"With all due respect, fuck you ma'am."

"I'd snap you in half," Alyssa said as she kept watching the star field.

The stars continued to streak by and the countdown to the next relay kept ticking away.

"Anytime you're ready to pull your head out of your ass and start talking go right ahead," Alyssa said offhandedly.

"Who the hell ever said you were good at talking to people and helping them with their problems?"

"I didn't, everyone just seems to dump all their personal shit on me and expect me to fix it. What makes you a special and unique flower?"

"I can handle it."

"Bullshit, you're so torqued up that even Vega knows something's up with you."

Joker snorted.

"Seriously, head out of ass right the fuck now. Aside from the Doc we've known each other longer than anyone else on this tub, or do I need to call Mom up here to make you spill your guts?"

"Leave Hacksaw out of this," Joker said. "Bad enough I've got her talking to EDI about us and how to not break anything." He shuddered. "That's something I don't need her knowing."

"That EDI wants to ride you like a rented mule?"

"You too?"

"Come on Joker, I'm sure she's got a vibrate function somewhere in there."

"God damn it Shepard!"

"We can talk about your love life or we can talk about what burr has climbed up your ass. I've got twenty minutes to kill and no problem asking if EDI's got a data port on her bluebox that's waterproof."

"Fine! You win!" Joker exclaimed as he turned his chair to face her. "I'm worried about my family."

"See, was that so hard? What's going on with them?"

"My sister, she always sends me a message, even if it's just a quick short one every night at twenty one hundred local. Well I haven't gotten one from her and the Alliance has stopped putting out SitReps on Tiptree."

"Last update still confirmed that all Reaper activity was in a different hemisphere from your family's place."

"Was," Joker intoned. "Look, Shepard, there's too much going on. I'm sure something just happened to the comms and my family was on the evac list. I'm sure they're offworld already and my sister just couldn't get the usual message out."

"But you don't know?"

"No."

"And it would be the first thing she'd do?"

"Yeah, she'd let me know they were all offworld and ok."

"Well then let's check it out…,"

"No, Shepard, just no. We don't have the time to waste on my family. We've got things to do a galaxy to save just… don't worry about it, I'll be fine. They'll be fine."

"Joker, we're going to be a single relay jump from Tiptree, it's literally what, two hours out, two hours back? We'll spend four hours checking on your family. Hell, we'll pick them up and we can deposit them someplace like Eden Prime, six hours tops. Aria can sit on her purple ass for six hours. The Terminus won't be any less shitty for six hours of waiting."

"Shepard, I can't. You can't do this for me. Garrus' family, everyone on Earth, everyone on here has family in trouble. You can't go running off for all of them so you can't go running off for me."

"Joker, right now we can't do a damn thing for most people's families. I hate to admit it but we can't. Our mission is the only chance we have for most people's families and until we get some leads to work our mission right now is what I say it is. If I say Aria can sit on her purple ass for six hours while we tidy up your family then she can. A bunch of rim pirates aren't going to settle this fight one way or another. At best they're cannon fodder, at worst they're a distraction."

"A useful distraction," Joker said.

"I'd rather have a pilot whose head is in the game and right now that ain't you." Alyssa stood up. "We're going to Tiptree, we'll pick up your family and taxi them off to Eden Prime or somewhere safe, alright?"

Joker nodded slowly, starting to turn towards his console.

"That sounded like a question but it wasn't one. Alright?"

"Yes ma'am," Joker answered back smartly as he started to work the nav computer and she headed for the door. "And, thank you Alyssa."

"No problem Jeff," she said as the door slid open. Her voice also picked up so that it would carry properly to the bridge crew as well as to EDI and Traynor who were waiting outside. "And talk to your mechanical girlfriend. I am not playing fucking relationship counselor between my damn ship and her pilot!"

VOV

"Must you tease Jeff about his relationship with EDI?" Liara asked as Alyssa wrapped her arms around the Asari's shoulders from behind.

"Mhmm," Alyssa murmured as she started to nibble on the tip of one of her lover's head tentacles.

"Stop distracting me," Liara whined as Alyssa purred and sent pleasant vibrations through the sensitive appendage.

"Mmmm, no."

"If you want me to find out what I can about Tiptree you can't be teasing me like that."

"Awww, I thought you could multi-task my little blueberry."

"You demand all my attention," Liara teased back as she squirmed away from Shepard and broke her grip added by the Normandy's deceleration from FTL flight and it's quick reorientation before shooting off again in violation of all the laws of vanilla physics. "That was rough, Joker's in a hurry."

"It's his family so I'm not surprised." Alyssa said as she pulled Liara against her this time chest to chest.

Liara put her hands in Shepard's chest and pushed her away. She had no illusions about being able to get out of the human woman's arms without her biotics but Alyssa wasn't usually too demanding when there was work to be done, usually. "If you need it that bad go find Kelly, or specialist Traynor. I have work to do. Work you assigned me if you'll remember."

"Seems stupid for me to make you busy right now. Obviously I couldn't have issued that order."

"No, stupid was you coming down here in the first place, especially with you in that mood."

"What mood?"

"The mood you get in any time you win and get to try and make someone you care about happy."

"I'm not in any mood."

"Then why are my head tentacles moist, and why are you looking at me like you want to devour me?"

"I don't look like this all the time?"

"More than usual right now," Liara said as she pushed Alyssa towards the door. "Go, let me work. You need to get ready."

"Spoil sport."

"Hairy primate."

"Mmm baby, talk dirty to me."

VOV

"So far I haven't been able to raise any of my contacts on Tiptree," Liara said to the others gathered around the meeting table.

"I thought you were the Shadow Broker," Vega asked.

"If the comms don't work how exactly am I going to collect information in less than two hours?"

"Just saying."

"Anything at all?" Alyssa asked before James and Liara went at it, again.

"Nothing, I received a regular status update from a contact approximately nineteen hours ago and then nothing."

"So about the same time the Alliance stopped updating the SitRep."

"Precisely."

"I don't suppose this could just be a downed comm buoy," Garrus asked. Alyssa and Liara both looked at him and he sighed. "Had to ask."

"The Alliance would have spares and put one up right away if that's what it was," Alyssa said.

"I contacted Alliance command," Traynor said, "They don't know why the blackout happened. They were going to divert the _Dunkirk_ to investigate but since we're headed that direction they just asked for a report when we get it."

"I thought the Reapers weren't on Tiptree in force, just a harassing group to keep the garrison pinned down," Miranda said.

"That's what everyone thought, not enough of them to gain any ground, but enough to keep the garrison from being able to be redeployed elsewhere. They had a destroyer deployed with them but just the one," Alyssa answered as a holographic display of the planet materialized. One of the southern continents was tinted red and a tiny destroyer was standing near one of the major port cities. "They were mostly encamped on the more populated southern continent with a constant stream of attacks against major population centers. Evacuations had started and were progressing well."

"Think they might have brought in reinforcements?" Garrus asked.

"Undetected?" Liara said. "Not likely. The Reapers don't bother with stealth."

"Cerberus?" Jack asked.

"You almost sound hopeful," Alyssa said with a chuckle.

"Maybe. They like to be sneaky and they're stupid enough to start shooting at their own kind."

"No idea, all we know is that Tiptree has gone dark," Alyssa said. "So we've got two goals. We reestablish communications with the system and assess the situation. Two, we locate Joker's family and extract them." A dot flared to life on one of the northern continents. "They live out in the boonies in a small farming community. Odds are they're sitting tight waiting for their shot to evac complaining that the comms are out. Any questions?"

There was silence around the table.

"Good. Joker's saved all our asses at one point or another, most of us more than once. Without him odds are we wouldn't even be having this conversation because Sovereign would have pulled his mission off and we'd all be in some Reaper death camp waiting to be turned into slurry. Let's go grab his folks and get'em out. It's the least we can do."

"If it keeps the cripple from flying us into a star I'm down for it," Jack said.

"Alright, Liara and Traynor, once we hit the system the two of you need to get learn everything you can and do it in short order. Tali, figure out what happened to their comms and fix it if you can. Vega, Garrus, Ashley, Miranda, Jack, Grunt, and EDI you're with me. We arrive in system in twenty minutes, get ready."

VOV

"Mark," Joker calmly intoned as the stars outside snapped back into individual points of light.

"Drift, five hundred," EDI calmly reported. "Stealth systems engaged."

"Course laid in, ahead full."

"Picking up anything?" Alyssa asked as she laid one gloved hand on the console in front of her. She was already in her armor in preparation for landing.

Traynor was busily flipping through readouts. "Nothing yet. All long range comm frequencies are quiet."

Alyssa nodded. "We expected that. What about short ranged stuff?"

"That's just it, nothing intra-system either. Still too far out to pick up local sideband from the planet."

Alyssa said nothing but Joker shifted in his seat. In front of them one of the system's gas giants expanded as the closed then slipped past them to starboard. The nav display showed them whipping through its collection of moons, asteroids, and rings with Joker using tiny adjustments to their course to pick up a few more meters per second of speed. "Cortez, status?"

"We're good to go ma'am, shuttle's loaded. Just waiting on you."

"Keep'em warmed up, we're closing on Tiptree."

"Roger ma'am."

"Anything yet?" Alyssa asked.

"No ma'am, long range and intra-system comms still silent."

"Sensors are detecting no untoward activity," EDI added in.

"Are they detecting any activity?" Alyssa asked.

"No."

They continued in system in silence. The FTL drive was moving them along at a bit over the speed of light.

"Two hundred million kilometers out," EDI announced.

"Can we get a visual," Joker asked.

"Yes."

The planet that appeared on the viewers was not remarkable. The same green and blue marble of so many garden worlds. A little more green on the bottom than the top but almost familiar, reminding her of Earth, right down to the fires burning on the nightside of the southern continent and the long gray smudges of smoke that decorated the day side. They weren't confined to the southern continent either. Long sooty trails emanated from several points on the coast of the northern continent too.

"That's not good," Alyssa said quietly.

Joker said nothing.

"Picking up anything yet?" Alyssa asked.

Traynor tilted her head and pressed her hand against her ear. It was a bit of an anachronism given that the communication bud was implanted in her head not stuck in her ear but she heard things like it was. "Starting to pick up some faint sideband, short ranged comms, surface to surface. It's all too faint to extract anything yet."

"Stay silent, we don't want the Reapers knowing we're here."

"What about the troops on the ground?" Joker asked.

Alyssa watched as the planet slowly turned, the black line of night crawling across the northern continent. "We can't repel a full on Reaper invasion. We get in, find your family, pull them out, see if we can reestablish comms with local command and bug out to report what we've seen to command. They can sort it out then." She didn't like it, but there was nothing one frigate and a platoon of soldiers, even if it was the Normandy and her squad, could do about a full on invasion in force. They couldn't get tied down here, not with the entire galaxy in the balance. They had time for one good deed, that was it.

Joker went back to his piloting, again, silent. Alyssa watched him from the corner of her eye. He'd rarely ever spoken about Tiptree, preferring to spend his time talking about joining the Alliance, or Arcturus Station. What did he think about seeing Tiptree like this? She had no special attachment to any one place. The Earth she knew had been a cesspool she'd been all too eager to leave. The Citadel was nice, but it was just another space station, just another port of call. The old Normandy had almost made it to being something more than a ship to her, but not quite. She admired it, liked it, was even proud of it but home? No, not home. This ship though, inspite of its origins, in spite of being a remake of the first Normandy, in spite of being an AI's body, this ship was home. Would seeing it on fire, burning affect her? Probably. Was that what Joker was feeling right now?

"We'll reach orbit in thirty minutes," he announced.

"Let the ship know EDI," Alyssa ordered. She looked back at Traynor, "Anything from the comm buoys?"

Samantha shook her head. "Not even carrier waves. Any long range communications are completely down."

"Let Tali know, there might not be anything left to fix." Alyssa looked out the front viewports, in the distance she could just make out the tiny blue dot of the approaching planet. "I'm going down to the shuttle. Traynor, once we get close enough try and locate any kind of central command and patch me into their channel. We'll have a listen but do not break stealth. Joker, bring us close to your family's farm then pull back alright? EDI see if you can localize Reaper forces and send me the TacSit."

A chorus of affirmations came back and Alyssa headed for the cargo bay. When she'd first taken command of the SR-2 she'd kept all her weapons in her room, too nervous for them to be out of sight around a Cerberus crew but she'd eventually warmed to them and while the old armory was gone she was content to leave her arms, minus a pistol or three, down here with Cortez. She still checked up on his work but she wasn't living in constant fear of having her weapons tampered with anymore. Tali and Ashley knew her well enough to not start mucking about with them without her go ahead.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal the cargo bay and she had to admit that while she loathed many of the things the Alliance had done to her ship, next to the paint job moving the armory down to the cargo bay had been one of the best. Her team was already there and waiting. Garrus, Grunt, Ashley, and Vega already in their armor with their weapons. Garrus was, like always, tinkering away with something on his rifle. Even minutes from drop he was tweaking something. Grunt and Vega were busy trying to one up each other while Ashley bemusedly watched on. The latino soldier was one of the few humans who didn't have to look up at Grunt which had only made him want to put Vega in his place even more. Their constant jockeying for the position of toughest male on the ship had so far not come to blows but if they ever sorted it out Alyssa was looking forward to knocking the winner on his ass.

Miranda was trying to discuss something with Jack and EDI and while she appeared to have EDI's undivided attention and her girlfriend was ignoring her Alyssa knew that couldn't be farther from the truth as Miranda most likely had a few percent of EDI's processing power devoted to listening to her while Jack would be able to, sarcastically, repeat every important point Miranda made. Thankfully all three were in various bits of armor. Miranda in her reinforced soft suit while Jack and EDI were just using a chestplate and thigh guards. It was a step up from Jack going into battle with absolutely nothing but her pants and belt bra on though Alyssa would have been happier with her in a soft suit. It had taken Miranda a lot of convincing to get Jack to wear even that much. Alyssa could still remember the fight, it was always a fight with them, and Miranda had won it like she'd won so many fights with Jack, by pulling the "I care about you," card on her. Which won her the fight and treated everyone on the ship to another of Jack's incredibly creative and detailed string of expletives. It wasn't fighting fair but Miranda was as interested in a fair fight about as much as Alyssa was. It had gotten Jack into something a bit more reasonable for a war-zone so everyone was happy.

Alyssa went to her own weapon's locker and started to arm herself. Submachine guns, her new favorite toy a Graal spike thrower, her Paladin pistol, assorted knives and bits of sharpened metal, and finally her rifle. Half assault rifle, half medium machine gun, all antique and barely recognizable as it had once been after years in her care and then almost three with Ashely, Tali, and Jacob helping her perfect it. She carefully inspected it, deploying it and checking the sights and ammo feed before flipping between it's active modes.

"Would you two like a moment together?"

Alyssa grinned as she stowed the rifle on her back and turned to Kelly. "Only if you join us."

"I think Mr. Cortez might start to take it personal if you keep checking up on your weapons like that."

Alyssa shook her head, "Steve is a big boy. He gets it. It's nothing against him it's just a ritual, a habit. I guess kind of a reflex. My instructors would have had my head if I ever accepted a weapon and didn't give it at least a quick once over to confirm it worked."

Kelly fussed with one of the armor buckles under Alyssa's right arm, checking it and tightening it before running her fingers over the others. "Regardless, just tell him once in a while that he's doing a good job."

"I will, I will," Alyssa assured her. "Going ship's therapist on me again?"

"The new crew is having to integrate with the old and they're having to deal with being the outsiders. It's sort of obvious you trust Ashley and Tali with your weapons but just trust Steve with not messing with them." Her nimble fingers wormed under one of the lames that made up Alyssa's belly plate and checked a power connection hidden behind it.

"What's wrong Kelly?" Alyssa prodded as she let the redhead continue to examine her armor, satisfying a nervous habit.

"Something isn't right with this," she said as she tugged the narrow armor plate back into position.

"The Reapers have invaded the galaxy, you're gonna have to get more specific than that sweetie."

"This situation, it's all wrong," she said as she fussed over Alyssa's armor, still not looking her in the face.

"I know, the comms are down, the Reapers should be being held back but they're moving on and..."

"It's not that," Kelly said. "It's... I feel it. It's not right, something is very wrong here."

"Feel it? Like what, intuition because this whole situation is pretty fu..."

"No!" Kelly hissed. "It's... something else. Just... be careful, and bring Joker's family back he's barely holding onto it right now."

"He didn't look that bad to me."

Kelly finally looked up into Alyssa's eyes. "Trust me, this is a lot worse for him than he's letting on. Besides, who's the therapist hmm?"

"Alright," Alyssa said. "But we're talking about this when I get back."

"Five minutes to drop," Joker's voice came over the comms.

Alyssa sighed then looked back to Kelly, "I gotta go do a thing."

"I know, just be careful," Kelly said as she kissed Alyssa lightly on the lips.

Alyssa smirked as she turned and headed for the shuttle. "Hey, it's me," she said with an arrogant grin.

VOV

Alyssa swayed as the shuttle hit an updraft, momentarily lofting it up before letting it down. She stayed loose and relaxed, absorbing the bump rather than trying to stiffly ride it out like she'd seen many a nugget do right before being thrown face first into a bulkhead.

"Still nothing on comms," Traynor's voice said in Alyssa's earpiece.

"Alright, stay silent until the Reapers know we're here. No reason to give them a head's up."

"Shepard," EDI said from the cockpit.

"What's up?" she said as she leaned in.

"Specialist Traynor did not want to say this over the comms where Joker could overhear but we're starting to pick up sideband from the area where Joker's family farm is. There is heavy Reaper activity in the area."

"Shit..." Alyssa hissed.

"We haven't been able to localize it but the area appears overrun."

"Alright, continue in, we'll make a pass over the farm and see if anyone's still alive down there. And EDI..."

"Yes Shepard?"

Alyssa made eye contact with her before slowly shaking her head. "Never mind, I'll do it. Patch me in to Joker."

"Yes Shepard," EDI said with little inflection. Alyssa was starting to recognize a difference between EDI the person's voice and EDI the ship's.

"Joker, you there?"

"I'm here commander," he said tersely.

"We're picking up Reaper signals around your family's farm. We're going in for a look."

For several long seconds there was silence. "Understood Commander.

"Maybe they might have bugged out when trouble came around," Jack suggested.

"Shepard," EDI cut in. "It should be possible to pick up the carrier waves of any communications devices any of Joker's family may have on them."

"What's the catch?"

"The shuttle's communication's suite should be able to simulate a communication's node to activate the carriers."

"And let them know we're here," Miranda said.

"Yes. It will also alert the Reapers once her communication's device begins broadcasting."

"My sister always kept her omni-tool with her," Joker said. "She sleeps with it."

"Do it EDI," Alyssa ordered.

"Approaching the farm."

"Activating comm signal."

Alyssa turned to look out the side of the shuttle's viewport as Cortez brought them over the trees and into sight of the Moreau's farm.

"Shit," Cortez said quietly.

The fields surrounding the farm were torn up by weapons, smoldering in the aftermath of some kind of fight. An orchard on the far side of the farm was on fire with half of it already ash, naked and charred limbs reaching up out of the scorched ground. The farm house itself was half destroyed, blown inwards and collapsed on itself while the half still standing was blackened and shot full of holes.

"Goddamn it," Joker said softly.

"No human life signs detected, no carrier waves," EDI reported mechanically.

"Someone's noticed!" Cortez shouted as he violently jerked the shuttle away from the farm, whipping it from view right before the red glow of incoming fire filled the viewport.

"You've got trouble coming your way!" Traynor told them. "We've got a flight of Occulus' vectoring in from the southern coast."

"Confirmed," EDI said, "Reaper activity on the local net has doubled, evidence of ground forces starting to vector in on our location."

"Well shit," Alyssa groaned. "Get us out of here Steve! Joker, can you do anything about occulses?"

"Aye ma'am."

She didn't have time to reflect on how deadpan Joker had said that before EDI interrupted. "Commander, I'm picking up a carrier wave to the north west!"

"How many?"

"Just one. An omni-tool belonging to Hilary Moreau."

"Commander...!" Joker started to yell.

"Vector us in EDI and get a hold of her, tell her we're coming," Alyssa ordered as he slapped Steve on the shoulder.

"Course laid in," Cortez said, "Going in hard."

"Shepard," EDI said to get her attention. "I've isolated her position. There are numerous Reaper forces in the area. We will not be able to make a covert extraction."

"This just became a smash and grab people," she said glancing over her shoulder into the cargo bay. "No subtlety, we hit'em, grab whoever we can find, and bug out before they swarm us."

A quiet, harried, and confused young girl's voice came over the shuttle's speakers. "Who is this?"

"Hilary?!" Joker yelled before anyone else could answer.

"Jeff?" the girl asked in shock and surprise.

"Hilary, are you ok?" Joker asked.

"No, my leg, it's hurt and those..."

Another voice came in, older, harsher. "What are talking about? Shut up or they'll hear you!" There was a scuffle and words exchanged that the omni-tool filtered out since they weren't aimed at it before the voice came back "Who is this?"

"Joker Moreau, Alliance navy, Hilary's brother. Put her back on the damn line!"

Alyssa got EDI's attention and slashed across her throat and EDI cut Joker out of the conversation. "This is an Alliance exfil team. We're here to pull the girl out and anyone with her. What's your situation?"

"Screwed, and how do I know you're not indoctrinated?" 

"Because there are Reapers all around you and if they knew your comm carrier signal they wouldn't need me to get you to give yourself up, they'd just swarm you."

"Well now they know we're here!"

"And we're inbound so sit tight and we'll get you out."

The comm was silent as whoever was on the other end of the line pondered the situation.

"Fine, but there's a big group of Ravagers to the sou..."

"SHIT!" Cortez yelled half a second before the shuttle was hit dead center and went tumbling. "We're hit! Barriers caught most of it," he announced as he got control over the spinning shuttle and the viewport showed he'd gotten it only meters from the tree tops.

"Ravagers," EDI confirmed. "A large group, covering most of the adjacent two valley's. We cannot land or we will be in their fields of fire."

Alyssa looked at the topographic map with the Reaper forces overlay which now bore a large inverted red triangle on top of a hill with a commanding view of the valley they'd just flown into and the adjacent one to the north where Hilary's carrier wave was emanating.

"Shepard, what's going on?" Joker asked.

"There's a large group of Ravagers positioned to cover the valley where your sister is Jeff, we cannot land there to pick her up," EDI informed him.

Alyssa nudged Steve and pointed to a small depression to the west of Hilary's valley and he nodded. "Should be enough cover, but I can't come get you without taking fire."

"I know," she answered, "But it's the only place close that they can't hit."

"Still two kilometers out and back."

"I know. Drop us off and orbit, we'll call you in."

"What the hell is going on down there?" Joker asked. "I'm coming back, I'll take'em out."

"Negative Joker, shut up and listen," Alyssa said. "Get south and bounce those occuluses before they know you're there, then get your ass up here. We'll go in on foot, grab her, and hoof it out. Then you lay into the Ravagers, we lift off and meet you mid-air before we bug out."

"Aye-aye commander," Joker said tensely.

"And Traynor and Liara, you two need to be ready to establish comms with the locals as soon as you hit the occuluses. Jig's up at that point, let's go for broke."

"Acknowledged."

Cortez skimmed the shuttle over the trees, trying his best to stay too low for the Ravagers to get a shot on them but occasional red streaks still ripped through the treetops nearby. "That's a hell of a spot for an AA battery," he said through gritted teeth.

"Are you still alive?" the older female voice said over the comms. 

"Yeah, we're still here," Alyssa confirmed.

"Thought they'd got you."

Alyssa nudged EDI on her shoulder as Cortez brought them in for a landing. EDI transferred Hilary's channel to their squad network. "They almost did," Alyssa said as she unlimbered her rifle and took her place at the door. When it snapped open she hopped the meter to the ground and quickly ran to the tree line around the clearing as the rest of the squad followed with practiced ease. "We've had to put down in a depression two kilometers to the west, we'll come in and get you and fall back. Can you move?"

"Negative, the human girl has a broken leg, she can't move. I can't carry her out either. We've got a good hiding place but if we move we're dead."

"Understood. Hang on, we should be there in fifteen."

"Alrig... shit, hurry. I think we're getting company."

Once the last of the squad was off the shuttle rose and accelerated away to put some real cover between it and the ravagers. Within seconds silence returned to the forest and the only light was from the moon. "Alright, let's go," Alyssa said as she started to move out and the squad fell in around her. They fell into a wedge-like formation. Ashley and Vega took the right flank, Alyssa and Grunt were on the left flank, while Jack, Miranda and EDI formed the center and Garrus the rear guard. .

The forest was not unlike many that she'd seen before. Thirty meter trees resembling pines and firs with a few deciduous ones thrown in for flavor. The only thing out of the ordinary was how smooth their bark was. The underbrush wasn't thick but between it and the widely spaced trees it still limited their vision to twenty or thirty meters. The ground itself was broken and uneven, churned up by the roots of the trees with it rising in many places high enough to hide yourself behind.

The entire squad were using night amplification equipment so the darkness was no real hindrance. Alyssa was the sole exception, having learned not long after being revived that Miranda might have left her mind untouched, mostly, but she hadn't been as shy with the rest of her. One of the many improvements made had been to her eyes which gave her night vision equal to just about anything stand alone goggles could do.

The forest was alive with all hoots and howls of its animal life and the buzz of it's insects. The leaves rustled in the breeze and if you tried hard you could forget that on other parts of the planet people were dying by the hundreds, even thousands at that moment. The forest continued on without a care in the world and why shouldn't it? The Reapers weren't here for it. They didn't care about the birds or the trees or anything like that. They were only here for the sapients and their works, advanced ones that they would gleefully exterminate by the billion before reducing their works to ash. They wouldn't bother the forest, leaving it alone so in ten million years they could return for whatever creature attempted to rise to greatness and embrace the stars only to find them presided over by cruel gods who only craved their deaths.

Alyssa frowned as those morose thoughts clouded her mind. It had been easier to stay objective about the Reapers before they had descended upon the galaxy en masse. Before she realized that she owed the rise of her species and the species of everyone she cared about to the continual genocide the Reapers kept inflicting upon the galaxy.

She instead brought up the local map and her implants displayed it as an overlay over the world in her eyes. They had closed in by over a kilometer but they still had a ways to go.

"Contact," Garrus hissed over the comms. Everyone halted and sunk to their knees. "Bearing forty, range fifty meters."

Alyssa turned her head to the south east and spotted them, husks. For creatures with such stiff gaits they were moving fairly well through the cluttered forests. "Ok, we've got the skirmishers, where are the actual troops?" It was going to turn into a right angled engagement, that much Alyssa was sure of. They were trying to move to the east to get to Joker's sister and the Reapers would be moving north towards them. "Bear left, three fifteen, lets try and keep some distance between us and them."

The husks didn't seem to be moving with much purpose. Just a general flow to the north which seemed to conform to standard Reaper tactics. Husks weren't soldiers or even meant to accomplish much. They were just sent in in unending waves to tie you down and consume their target's ammo while their real killers, cannibals, marauders, brutes and ravagers would come in and wipe their opponents out. The Reapers were probably just sending them out hoping that they'd find her and the squad and raise the alarm so the rest of their forces could vector in.

Their careful detour quickly put some distance between them and the husks they'd spotted and for a few minutes things were relatively quiet as they put the Reapers behind them.

"Let's pick up the pace," she urged. She could hear the distance clicks and growls of Reaper ground forces and at the rate they were moving they'd wind up engaged long before they could get to Hilary. The leaves of a bush off to the right rustled with purpose and Alyssa brought her rifle up to cover it. The entire team tensed up, finding cover and readying their weapons as the bush shivered then burst forth as a lean hexapedal deer like creature bounded away from them deeper into the forest.

"Alright, relax, let's get moving aga...," Alyssa began right until the bark of the tree she was next too exploded into splinters as a stream of glowing red mass driver rounds chewed it to pieces.

"CONTACT!" Vega yelled as more shots started to rip apart the jungle around them.

"No shit," Jack yelped back as her biotics flared to life and two husks were yanked off their feet and sent flying into the jungle canopy.

Alyssa brought her rifle up and dropped the crosshairs over a cannibal's face. The altered batarian's face exploded in a satisfying spray of viscera as she snapped back on the trigger before sweeping her weapon to the right and doing the same to another pair of them and a husk that was charging.

"When did these guys learn to be quiet?" Ashley asked as her argus started to snap off three round bursts and the newly minted spectre demonstrated how she'd risen as far as she had by killing a Reaper troop with every burst.

"Pull back and push east," Alyssa said into her comms. "We can't get bogged down."

A marauder came charging in from the left but EDI was there. Blue and white arcs crawled over the spasming former-turian's body as she overloaded it's cybernetics before finishing it off with a long burst to it's face from her submachine gun.

Their attackers were coming from the south but they weren't bringing much. Lots of husks and cannibals but with only a few marauders. Alyssa ducked around a tree as a grenade a cannibal had tossed wiped out the bush she'd been using for cover but when it tried to push its momentary advantage to move up into new cover a full auto burst from her rifle dropped it. At the same time Vega leveled his shotgun at another and leveled it. "Scouting party," Alyssa hissed. "Finish'em quick and get moving. Our cover's blown."

The Reapers weren't pushing the advantage, being almost cautious in how they engaged. While the husks charged forward mindlessly and were quickly wiped out the cannibals and marauders did little to close the distance, content to lob in grenades while peppering them with enough fire to keep them cautious.

"They're trying to delay us, pin us down," Miranda said as her rifle snapped off shots.

"Vega, Grunt, grenade'em. Ash and me will provide cover while everyone else displaces," Alyssa said. They needed to disengage and keep moving. One on one the Reapers were no match for them but the Reapers never fought one on one. In short order it would be ten on one, then a hundred to one, and they'd keep coming until they were dead no matter what. They didn't care how many they lost; their soldiers would either die on the battlefield or be left to rot and fall apart once the Reapers returned to dark space.

Vega and Grunt lobbed a pair of grenades towards were their attackers were and then followed them with another pair. "Frag out!" Vega yelled.

Alyssa braced her rifle against a tree and after all four grenades went off blowing dirt, lichen, shrubbery, and body parts into the air in equal measure she held the trigger down on her weapon and bathed the area in fire as the rest of the squad fell back and to the east, pushing towards the objective. She didn't have a target, just a goal, keep their heads down.

"Set!" Miranda called as they found cover and prepared.

"Displace!" Alyssa ordered and after one last quick volley she, Ashley, Vega, and Grunt quickly scrambled out of their cover as the others started to blast at the Reapers. Her feet found purchase as she hustled through the dark forest, landing surely on upturned roots and bounding over small holes until she ran through the thin line the biotic and technical side of the squad had set up. Their own weapons and abilities were blazing away into the Reapers as the first part of the squad charged through and kept going. Twenty meters later Alyssa skidded to a halt as did the rest of them and she ducked behind a large root, bracing her rifle as she heard a chorus of "ready"s from the rest of the group. "Set!" she barked into the comms

Half a second later Miranda called, "Displace," and the rest of them came running.

"Hold fire," Alyssa ordered as she peered out into the darkness. Their attackers were either dead or disoriented and she didn't see any following after them. She rose to her knees and looked for any sign of movement as Miranda's half of the group moved through but aside from the settling of dust and the fall of branches and leaves from the firefight she saw nothing. "Form up and let's go," she said. "Double time."

"Shepard, we've got the occulus flight in our sights," Joker announced. "Do you have my sister yet?"

"Not yet, we're closing in. EDI can keep you up to date Joker."

"She said you guys ran into some trouble." 

"Nothing we can't handle, just a little scouting party," she replied as she fell in at the head of the squad. She didn't like hustling through the woods like they were but she didn't have a choice. The Reapers had a good location for them and would be vectoring in everything they had on top of them. The only hope they had was to move faster than the Reapers. "You need to get your ass back here ASAP though."

"I'll bounce these guys and be right up," Joker.

Alyssa glanced at EDI. "There are six occuluses in the flight, Jeff and I can handle them easily with the element of surprise."

"Well hustle, I don't think we've got time to fool around."

"Understood," EDI replied.

When EDI had first volunteered her services on the ground Alyssa had been wary and eventually a bit wierded out by the fact that EDI was present both on the ground and on the ship with no apparent loss of capability and furthermore no seeming concern with her being in two places at the same time.

"I don't see anyone following us," Garrus announced. "Clean break."

A little light was blinking in her HUD and Alyssa activated her comms, accepting the call.

"Was that you?" the older voice from Hilary's comms asked.

"We ran into a scouting party. What's your situation?"

"Movement to the southeast," she said in a tense whisper. "Nothing's showed itself yet but there is something out there."

"Sit tight, we're five hundred meters out."

There was an inhuman scream, too unnatural and awful for even the comm system to filter out. That echo'd in the distance as well. "Oh goddess, Neaira."

"We're out of time," Alyssa said. "MOVE!" And with that she stopped trying to hold formation as did everyone else. She slung her rifle on her back as she started to run. Her HUD gave her the navigation cue and Alyssa followed it, barreling through the forest as quickly as she could. EDI's mechanical body was able to keep pace with Alyssa's augmented one but the two of them quickly began to pull away from the rest of the group. They were moving too quickly to avoid anyone who might be in front of them and making enough noise tearing through the underbrush that anyone nearby had to hear them.

And they did. As Alyssa approached the small clearing where Hilary and her companion were hiding a group of cannibals rose up from behind a small swell in the ground and started to spray mass driver fire at them. There was no time to react, to find cover, or even prepare for it so Alyssa just lowered her head and charged, pulling her submachine guns from their thigh holsters. In a rush she was among them, clubbing one in the face in passing as she shredded another's chest with a rolling burst from her other hand. One cannibal lunged at her, trying to wrap her in its misshapen arms but Alyssa twisted to the side, putting her gun to the side of it's head and emptying the creature's skull. As she turned she glimpsed EDI, the andorid's own weapon cutting down a husk as she wrapped her free arm around a marauder's head and twisted, ripping it off with with sickly popping sound.

A grenade exploded to Alyssa's r side making her barriers flair to life as it picked her up and dumped her on her side. She swung her feet back under her as a marauder drew a bead on her but her own biotics flared to life. "Come 'ere," she growled as she drug the augmented turian off his feet towards her waiting gun, blasting it in the face with a burst before hurling the dead body into another pair of husks that were charging them.

Her barriers came to life again as another Reaper minion drew a bead on her and let fly with its mass driver only to be cut down as the rest of the squad finally started to catch up and thin the distracted horde out.

She almost absently dispatched another husk that came into her sight as she spotted their goal for the first time, a very tall, very large tree with an exceptional network of roots that in many places rose three meters off the forest floor. No other tree stood within twenty meters of this behemoth and a little bit of movement in the roots drew Alyssa's eye to a small human girl and an asari crouched amongst the roots, well hidden. "Alright let's go...," she began before the scream came back, loud and terrible from the other side of the tree as a burst of light announced their visitor.

"BANSHEE!" Garrus yelled as the elongated fringe of the twisted creature's head appeared over the top of some of the roots.

A flick of her eyes put her on Hilary's comms but instead of making a connection she admitted one that was already incoming.

"On your right!" the woman called into her ear.

"Contact!" Miranda stated. "In force!"

Alyssa's eyes swept the scene quickly. The small patrols they had already encountered and dispatched were just that, small. The Reapers had caught up and caught up in force. From the south she spotted dozens of husks crawling across the landscape like a cybernetic tide. Some were old, their bodies gunmetal gray and shot through with cybernetics head to foot. Others were fresh, newly turned, pale gray with only a minimum of cyber tech. Behind them came cannibals and marauders by the dozen, swarming around the perimeter of the tree free zone near Hilary's hiding spot. Stomping through them all came a number of brutes but navigating through the tree's was slowing them down. With the Reapers to the south if the asari and Hilary ran they'd be cut down instantly. If they stayed they had a Banshee on them, and the squad would have its hands full just holding against the incoming tide of Reapers.

"Fall back north west," Alyssa ordered as the underbrush started to disintegrate under the incoming fire.

"Covering fire!" Miranda ordered immediately. "Displace!"

Alyssa was already scrambling to her feet and starting to run. A group of Reapers noticed her and started to shift their fire towards her but in a blue flash she was gone, ten meters from where she had been, planting her foot and twisting to the side. They didn't get another chance to fire as she jumped again, turned, and bounded again, rocketing around the perimeter of the tree in a blue blur. More talented biotics could have done it in a single bound and gone through the intervening part of the tree but Alyssa had never learned the precision with her biotics that others had and the brute force approached worked in a great many things. Only a handful of seconds passed between when she'd started her dash and when she got halfway around the tree to see the tall, cyberized form of the banshee, trying to force it's way through the roots of the tree to either get to Hilary and the asari or to flush them out so that the rest of their forces could kill them. Time was of the essence. The squad was already starting to fall back and the Reaper forces were pushing in on them. They'd no doubt be sending a few over to come after her as well which meant she had to get through this Banshee and fast.

Focusing her energy again the exploded forward in a biotically assisted charge, bounding up a tree root next to the three meter tall, twisted asari until she was head height. The silver demon was so distracted trying to force itself through the mangrove like roots of the tree that it didn't notice her until she was even with its head. Which was also the moment Alyssa lept from the root and brought her fist down against the monster's head, unleashing as much of her biotic ability as she could into a single blow that rocked the Banshee's head back and staggered it. As her feet hit the compacted loam of the ground Alyssa let all the power she had go in a single blast, radiating away from her and ripping the banshee's biotic barriers away. The twisted creature shrieked at her, setting Alyssa's teeth on edge but the human didn't back down, lunging forward and pushing her fist with her muscles and biotics sending it slamming into the banshee's gut and knocking it to the ground.

Alyssa's momentary triumph was short lived as the banshee recovered quickly, twisting and warping the air before it before hurling the biotic blast at Alyssa and knocking her backwards into the roots of the tree. The banshee started to stalk towards her, snarling its anger as it began to build its barriers again, and warm up another blast.

Alyssa yelped into her comms, "Little help he...," but wasn't able to finish it before one side of the Banshee's head caved in and the other exploded outwards to the sound of a sniper rifle's boom.

"Next time tell us what you're planning alright?" Garrus chided her.

"Ok dad," Alyssa snarked as she clambered to her feet and wormed her way through the roots of the tree as the Banshee collapsed dead behind her.

"You must be insane," the asari said as she finally wriggled through and came out in the small hollow she and Hilary were using.

"Probably," Alyssa said as she looked them over. The asari was half naked and unarmed, wearing only a thin t-shirt a couple sizes too large for her and pair of baggy pants cinched around her waist. She was muddy and bleeding in several places and she had no shoes. Hilary was not much better, looking much younger and frailer than her fifteen years. Her clothes fit her but they were meant for sleeping in, not running through the forest. She didn't have any shoes either and her left thigh had bits of bone sticking out of it. "Commander Shepard, Spectre, Alliance Navy."

"Lieutenant Aeian T'Goni," she began. "wait... you're THE Commander Shepard?"

"Commander Shepard?" Hilary asked weakly.

"That's what the tell me," Alyssa answered. "Your brother sent me Hilary." A few stray rounds started to come their way, thudding into the roots and branches that hid them from view. "My squad's falling back to the north west. We need to get out of here and link up. Can you move?"

"I can, myself. I took a round in the leg. I can't carry Hilary."

"I'll take her," Alyssa said as she quickly dug into the small medkit she kept on her belt. She jammed a small single use syrette into Hilary's leg near the compound fracture. "This will numb your leg," she explained as she took out a dressing and wrapped Hilary's leg with it, bringing the ends together so they could seal. "I've gotta carry you and I can't be gentle."

"Ok," Hilary groaned through clenched teeth. "I just wanna see Jeff."

Alyssa didn't need to feel her head to know the girl had a raging fever. "Don't worry, you'll see him in about ten minutes."

A brute roared as it slammed through the underbrush to be met with the slamming of Vega's automatic shotgun. "Got ya!" he bellowed in triumph as the big beast crashed to the ground with a thud.

"We gotta go," Alyssa said as she scooped Hilary up. The teenage girl was maybe forty kilos soaking wet and was no great impediment to Alyssa aside from occupying her left arm. She drew her pistol and handed it to the lieutenant. "You good with this?" T'Goni grabbed the pistol from Alyssa's hand like a starving woman would go after a sandwich. "Alright then." She stayed low as she crawled to the edge of the roots and peeked out. She could see Reapers pushing through the place where she'd left her squad and they were to the northwest and pulling back. "Alright, go around the tree and keep it between you and the Reapers. Pull back north fast as you can, I'll be right behind you." The asari shook her head in acknowledgement. "Alright, go!"

For someone barefoot the lieutenant took off like a sprinter, snapping off random shots at the Reapers as she went. Alyssa was close behind with Hilary slung over her shoulder. Shots riddled the roots around her as she ran around the curve of the tree and nearly right into the back of the asari.

"Neaira," she moaned over the corpse of the dead banshee.

"MOVE!" Alyssa yelled as she shoved her in the back and got her running again into the forest.

"You clear Shepard?" Miranda asked her over the comms.

"Clear!" Alyssa confirmed.

A split second later the night was lit up as a large patch of the forest was shredded by the series of explosions.

"That's why you always bring claymores and grenades," Vega whooped as Grunt chuckled.

"Joker, you read me?" Alyssa asked as she started to veer to the west, moving towards the squad's markers on her HUD.

"We're coming in fast Shepard," Joker said. "What about my sis...,"

"We got her," Alyssa interrupted. "I've got her right now but the Reapers are on our asses. We need those ravagers hosed now!"

"Three minutes out!" Joker declared.

"Cortez, uploading a new rendezvous," Alyssa said as she scanned the map. The small clearing she picked out wasn't far away but even now the Reapers would be vectoring in more and more troops. "Coordinate with Joker, we've got a lot of company and need a hot evac."

"Hey, good guys here!" Vega called out as the Lieutenant almost ran right past the rest of the squad in the dead of night.

The asari let out a desperate laugh at the sight of the rest of them before sagging into a tree.

Vega came over and began to take Hilary from Alyssa and she let him. "Don't worry chica, we'll get you back to your brother soon," he said soothingly.

Miranda cut in, between them. "Vega and Grunt's little stunt bought us some breathing room, but not much. We've still got Reapers on our tail and EDI says there's another group vectoring in on the clearing you want to use."

Alyssa nodded as she stowed her submachine gun and retrieved her rifle. "Only decent evac point along this route. We gotta get there before they do."

"A hundred and fifty meters," Garrus announced before his rifle cracked. "Make that a hundred and sixty but they aren't slowing down. They want us dead."

"Alright, lets move," Alyssa said as she took off into the woods again. The clearing was four hundred meters away which she could have ran in less than a minute in full gear on open terrain but the congested forest slowed them all down.

"Incoming," Joker announced on the comms before the sky to the south lit up.

Jack laughed, "I think Joker's were bigger," she taunted Grunt she ran past him.

"I said take out the ravagers, not the whole damn hill Joker!" Alyssa yelped as the remains of the ravagers and the entire hill rose in a small mushroom cloud over forest.

"You've got company, Reapers to the east of the landing zone, they'll be there before you are!" Cortez reported.

"The hell they will," Joker snarled over the comms. The clearing was just visible through the trees in the distance before the trees and ground itself trembled as the Normandy overflew them. There was a bright flash like a cain shot that washed out the entire forest in its actinic glare before an ear splitting crack ricocheted off their ear drums and drove them all to the ground when the blastwave hit.

"Jesus!" Cortez yelled as the Normandy arched away into the sky.

Alyssa and the rest of the squad were shaking bits of forest from their backs and standing back up as an unearthly quiet settled over the forest as everyone took a moment to appreciate what had just happened. Alyssa coughed and hacked, expelling the wave of dust and vaporized Reapers she'd just inhaled as she reoriented and found the clearing. Most of the forest to the right was just gone, blown flat, on fire, or just gone. "Everyone alive?"

"Not for lack of trying on Joker's part," Miranda said.

EDI walked by them, taking point. "I assisted Jeff's aim, we were in no danger."

"Tell that to my ear drums," Vega said as he adjusted Hilary on his shoulder. The girl had passed out at some point from a full grown soldier sized dose of painkillers.

"Move people," Alyssa said with a surety she wasn't entirely feeling after experiencing the violence of the Normandy's main guns at short range. "The Reapers are going to get their shit together too."

They ran the last hundred meters to the clearing just as Cortez set the shuttle down and opened the doors. As the squad boarded Alyssa looked to the east where Joker's handiwork was still burning. As bad as the backblast had been to them it was worse to the north east. Joker had overflown them in that direction and the shots from the thanix cannons had dug two huge trenches right through the forest and leveled everything within a hundred meters of them. When Miranda finally climbed aboard Alyssa followed, sealing the door behind them.

"The Normandy's overhead," Cortez informed her as they lifted off. "We'll dock in two."

"EDI, have the doctor meet us in the cargo bay. We've got one stretcher case," Alyssa said.

"Already done," EDI said.

Alyssa turned to the asari woman, holding her hand out for her gun. The woman looked down at the pistol clutched in her hand and then slowly relinquished it back to it's owner. "What happened down there?"

"I dunno. My commander sent me and Neaira up here to the northern continent to survey to local farms and prep them for evac. I found her farm," she said, pointing at Hilary, "two nights ago. They let us in, offered us a bed. We accepted. We'd been in the field for almost a week so a hot shower and a warm bed sounded perfect. They gave us dinner and I told Hilary stories. She told me about her brother and how she wanted to be just like. I went to get a shower and... I left my side arm in the bedroom."

"The screaming started after I got in. It was that... that howl. It was Neaira but... not her. Her eyes were gone, just black, her skin was graying. They'd indoctrinated her, turned her. She was turning into that... thing. She just killed them. I was in a towel, I didn't even have my clothes. She was killing them. Ripping them apart. They'd made Hilary go to bed. I caught her before she ran to them. Before Neaira could get her. I took her and we ran, out of the house, out of the farm. They were everywhere. Husks, cannibals, marauders." She looked up at the squad around her. "They weren't supposed to be there. The northern continent was supposed to be clear! We just ran, we couldn't do anything else. I didn't have my sidearm, I didn't even have clothes. We were dead, I knew it. My radio was still in the farm house. We found a spot to hide and we waited. They went by us but we had to go back. We thought to the coast was clear and we got back to the house. I got some clothes and but I needed the radio to call for an extract but... it was a prison. They were herding the farmers into this house from all around. Hilary knew some of them, she tried to go to them." She closed her eyes and shuddered.

"They were indoctrinated. All of them. They let her get close, they knew her by name, and when she got close they tried to tear her apart, tear us apart. I didn't have a choice, I used my biotics, I threw them away, got us out of there but... Hilary broke her leg, one of them slammed a chair into her. I carried her but it slowed me down. A cannibal got me in the leg," she said showing them where her pants were caked with blood and mud. I went as far as I could but... I couldn't go any farther. Not carrying her."

"The Reapers were hunting us. I could hear them. Hilary was whimpering I thought..." she stopped, closing her eyes and heaving her chest like she wanted to vomit. It took her a moment but she got it under control. "Then you called."

Alyssa clapped her on the shoulder. "You did what you could, and you saved Hilary. No one could ask for more from you."

The asari woman nodded her head. "If you say so."

"Our doctor will look you over," Alyssa assured her. "You'll be along for the ride for a bit but we'll drop you off on the Citadel next time we swing by, alright?" 

The asari nodded her head as the shuttle shimmied and shook as they cleared the cargo bay barrier and the docking clamps got them. "Home sweet home," Cortez replied.

The shuttle's doors opened up to a small gaggle of people waiting for them. Vega carried Hilary to a gurney that had been brought down for her and laid her on it as Doctor Chakwas started to examine her. Joker came hobbling into the cargo bay as quickly as he could as the doctor turned her attention to Aeian. "You should have told me to bring two stretchers," she chided Alyssa.

"She ran through the forest just fine," Alyssa answered.

"Adrenaline is a fairly good anesthetic," the doctor said as she looked over the bullet wound, clucking her disapproval.

Joker ignored them all, rushing to his sister's side. "Hilary!"

Hilary turned her head and opened her eyes, "Jeff?" she said softly.

"How are you?" he asked quickly.

"She'll be fine, Jeff," the doctor said before Hilary could say anything. "She has a compound fracture of her thigh, a rather nasty infection, a fever, and she's a bit dehydrated but nothing I can't take care of in a few days so long as she gets some rest."

"Mom was right," Hilary said dreamily as she reached up for his face. "You do look silly with a beard."

"Where's Mo...," Joker began but he stopped when Alyssa caught his eye. She slowly shook her head from side to side and understanding washed over Joker's face.

He said nothing but wrapped his sister up in his arms and hold her tight.

Alyssa turned towards EDI. "I presume you're flying the ship?" 

"Affirmative," she answered but her eyes never left Jeff.

"Then get us out of here, hit the relay and onto Omega, and go be with Jeff, he's going to need you."

"Shepard...," she started as the squad started to disperse through the bay, all of them, even Grunt and Jack, showing Joker some sympathy for his loss and to her pilot's credit he acknowledged it. "I do not feel capable of providing the necessary emotional support for Jeff at this time. Perhaps Yeoman Chambers."

Alyssa shook her head. "He doesn't need Kelly right now EDI, he needs you. Most people aren't ever really capable of handling this sort of thing. Just be there for him."

"Yes Commander."

When Chakwas and the crewmen started to wheel Hilary out Joker was hobbling along beside the gurney with EDI helping him. Vega assisted Aeian even though she tried to push him off her and once he won that fight she sagged into him as any fight she had left her.

Alyssa walked through the armory and dropped off her weapons except for her pistol before catching the elevator to the command deck. Specialist Traynor and Liara were waiting for her when she got off the elevator. "Commander," Traynor said, "we heard about Joker's family."

Alyssa nodded, "We'll deal with it later. What did you find out about the situation on the ground?"

"It fell apart about two days ago, command and control nodes were hit by indoctrinated infiltrators," Liara said. "Living bombs mostly but a few just started to gun down anyone in front of them."

Traynor continued, "In the confusion the Reaper's destroyer hit the planetary comm buoys before leveling a big chunk of the space port..."

"And preventing them from launching replacements," Alyssa finished. "So there's nothing for Tali to fix."

"Their ability to coordinate is crippled," Liara explained. "There aren't any coherent units over battalion sized and even those units are few and far between. The Reapers shattered them in the resultant confusion after the infiltrators. Without reinforcements they aren't going to be able to form a coherent resistance."

Alyssa sighed, "And there's not going to be any help forthcoming."

"Commander?" Traynor asked.

"There won't be any reinforcements. Tiptree doesn't have any strategic significance," Alyssa said flatly.

Samantha mouth gaped twice then three times before straightening up. "Aye Commander." Before she turned on her heel and stalked off towards the cockpit.

Alyssa sighed as she watched her comms officer walk off.

"She understands, Alyssa, she'll come around," Liara assured her.

"Twelve million people, Liara. Twelve million and they have no 'strategic significance'. This is an ugly war." Alyssa said as she walked towards the galaxy map and leaned on her station.

"It's going to get uglier," Liara said as she stood beside Alyssa.

"Thanks for reminding me," Alyssa cut in.

"It's going to get uglier BUT, we actually have a chance to win this Alyssa. For the first time in more than a billion years they are vulnerable."

"Have you ever stopped and asked yourself if anyone else has been here saying the same thing? If they believed they had a shot right up until the Reapers ended them?"

"This time is different. We've got Sovereign's corpse, the Klendagon casualty, the nascent Reaper from the Collector base. We have information that the other cycles didn't. We've finally found a chink in their armor."

"In my armor," Alyssa said quietly.

"You can't dwell on that. Mordin and Tali... they don't know for certain."

Alyssa let her head fall towards the table and shook it slowly. "Doesn't matter, or change anything. Ugh, I can't believe I'm letting myself wallow like this."

"I think the circumstances warrant it."

"They don't, not for me," Alyssa said as she straightened up. "We accomplished our mission and Tiptree's fate is the right choice. That's that. They can hold out, go to ground just like they're doing on Earth, just like they're doing on a hundred planets across the galaxy right now. The Reapers are as interested in taking Tiptree as we are in defending it." She looked at Liara, her face hardening up. "Get a SitRep on Tiptree prepped and send it off. Make sure it emphasizes the indoctrinated infiltrators. I don't doubt Hackett will see the issue but I don't want anyone else missing it."

"Right away Commander," Liara replied.

"I'm going to go check on our new guests and Joker," she said without a glance back to Liara as she stalked into the elevator and went to the crew deck.

"She's not taking this well is she," Kelly said as she walked around the galaxy map to Liara.

"No, she's not," Liara answered.

"She's had the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders for almost four years."

"The strain is starting to show."

"I need to go check on Joker and his sister," Kelly sighed.

"I have to go write the epitaph of a planet."

"Wanna trade?" Kelly asked with a little glint.

"No, I think I'll stay with the abstract on this one."

VOV

"Joker?" Alyssa asked as she walked into mess hall. Her pilot and EDI were both sitting at one of the tables. She could just see Doctor Chakwas giving the Asari commando a once over and a smaller form on another bed laying back. EDI was sitting close to Jeff, one silvery arm around his shoulder and the other gripping his forearm.

"Yes Commander?" he replied as he sat up as straight as he could. "Right, I need to get to the bridge." EDI's hands stayed on him, not letting him get up easily.

"At ease," Alyssa said. "EDI can fly herself to the jump point. And she probably won't waste as much energy as you do."

Joker let EDI drag him, gently, back down into his chair. Even that slight downward pressure made him wince. "I can handle it you two."

"I have no doubt you can fly the ship Jeff. I also have no doubt that right now I don't need you up there. You need to be down here."

"Hilary's asleep," he said. "Doc put her under while the bone knitter did it's thing. I don't need to be down here."

"Jeff," EDI said. "I believe you need to take the time to grieve. I can take care of piloting the ship for a few hours to allow you that time."

"She's right Joker. We're going to need you in a couple hours when we get to Omega. Right now you need to take the time to process what happened."

"What's the point? I can't change anything?" he said morosely. "All I can do is help you get the bastards that did this."

"Jeff, you're probably talking to the two people least qualified to be grief counselors on this ship. I'm an orphan and she's an AI. I still know you need to grieve."

"What's there to grieve? I was never that close to my parents. They were happy being farmers, colonists. I... wasn't what you'd call an ideal son. Aside from the obvious issues with me being a farmer I just never cared about it. Even as a kid I wanted to fly, I wanted off Tiptree and into a starship. They weren't bad parents. They did all they could for me, but its hard to connect with people when you spend so much time in hospitals and even when you are together you have nothing in common. They were good people but there wasn't much of a relationship there."

"You sure?" Alyssa prodded, "Sounds like they did a lot for you."

"They did, and they loved me. Dad even said he was proud of me when I got flight status, even prouder when he found out I was your pilot. Then the Collectors happened. Dad was a loyalist, so was Mom. I couldn't tell him I had jumped ship. I couldn't tell him about Cerberus. I told him I was on an extended assignment with SpecOps. I'd check in when I could but I didn't know how long I'd be or what would happen."

Joker sagged into EDI who said nothing, just letting him rest on her.

"He didn't take the arrest well. He told Hilary to stop talking to me. He didn't check up on her and she didn't but he... he felt betrayed, lied to. I tried to send him a message, to explain everything but the censors obliterated it. Hilary stuck up for me but to Dad she was just a star struck little sister. Liara helped me get a message to him, to explain what had happened, why things had gone down like they had. I don't think he liked it but at least he was willing to reply to the next message I sent. I wanted a chance to get to tell him in person but there just wasn't time."

Alyssa opened her mouth to reply but she closed it again. What was she supposed to say to him? She didn't know his family or their situation. She could barely relate. The closest thing she had ever had to a family was the crew of the Normandy. "I guess... I don't really know what to tell you Joker."

Jeff wiped his face with his hands. "I know Shepard, you're pretty shit with people anyways," he said with the slightest hint of a smile.

"I keep telling people that," she said.

"I just need some time, ok?"

"Sure Joker," Alyssa said as she stood up. She walked around the table and patted him on the shoulder, sharing a momentary look with EDI. The chrome plated woman nodded at her slowly before turning back towards Joker and laying her cheek on the top of his head. "Take the time you need but don't forget your sister is still here."

"Right, thank you Shepard," Joker said tightly.

"No problem Joker, that's what friends do," Alyssa said as she walked towards the medbay. She could hear the faint sob that Joker let out a moment later but she didn't react to it.

The doors to the small med bay whipped open bathing Alyssa in cool air reeking of antiseptics. The Doctor was "hmm"ing and "ahh"ing over the various nicks and scratches all over Aeian's barely clothed body. Off in one corner of the bay James was waiting, still in his armor. "Looking for a free show?" she asked him.

"Just waiting to help her out ma'am, that shot to her leg was nasty." He gave a small shrug with his shoulders then jerked his head towards the mess hall. "Besides, I figured Joker would rather have some time alone."

"Fine," Alyssa said, "But give the lady her privacy."

"Its fine," Aeian said from the bed as the doctor went to retrieve another instrument. Several medi-gel patches had been applied to her, covering the right side of her stomach, her left shoulder, and part of her left arm. Her leg where she'd taken the round was bandaged in a much more substantial dressing.

"You sure?"

"I'm a commando, modesty is something I got rid of a long time ago."

"Fair enough," Alyssa said letting the matter drop. "How are you feeling?"

"Alive, which is more than I expected to feel about two hours ago."

"Good, the Doc is top notch."

"I get a worryingly large amount of practice," Dr. Chakwas quipped as she walked between them and started to run a device over a place where Aeian's blue skin had been abraded, stimulating it to heal. "Most of it from you." She turned to the asari. "The commander hasn't quite learned to duck when she's shot at."

"I'll figure it out eventually."

"The girl," Aeian asked. "She's your pilot's sister?"

"She is."

"He has my condolences. The rest of his family died before I could do anything."

Alyssa nodded somberly. "Well you have his thanks. Because of what you did his sister is still alive."

Aeian rubbed her left thigh. "I don't suppose you have a weapon I could keep on me, do you?"

Alyssa glanced back to Vega and nodded towards the door. "We can probably arrange a side arm for you."

"I'm not indoctrinated," Aeian said, "If that's what you're worried about."

"Honestly, no. If you were then you'd have just shot me in the back of the head in the shuttle."

"I can't believe they did that to Neaira." 

"Indoctrinated her?"

Aeian nodded. "I don't even know how. I don't even know when. We've been deployed as partners for ages. We haven't left each other's sides since the war started."

"What about what she became?"

"That monster? I... I don't know. She just... started screaming that evil screech. It was like... she wasn't even there anymore it was just that thing like it consumed her."

"That's enough," the doctor cut in. "Her wounds are not severe but she's already suffering from shock and exhaustion. You can debrief her later."

"Alright, it can wait," Alyssa said as the medbay doors opened and Vega came back. He handed Alyssa a light Predator pistol in its holster. Alyssa gave it a quick once over and then offered it to Aeian.

"Sure you don't trust me?" she said after looking at the weapon.

"It's not a Paladin or a Carnifex but it'll do the job if need be," Alyssa assured her.

"Thank you," Aeian said. " I don't mean to be ungrateful." When the doctor walked away she hopped off the table and strapped the weapon on. Some of the tension in her left as the weight of the pistol rested on her thigh.

The doctor sighed. "Well it was mostly cosmetic at this point anyways." She turned and pulled a small vial of pills out along with another empty one. She dropped a few pills into the empty bottle before handing it to Aeian and repeating the procedure with another set of pills. "For the pain," she said holding up one bottle and shaking it, "and the infection. One each every six hours, come back to me tomorrow after you take the last ones."

Aeian nodded and took the bottles before heading for the door. She still limped quite a bit and when Vega offered her his shoulder she didn't refuse it this time.

"Talk to Yeoman Chambers, she'll set her up with a bunk," Alyssa said.

"Aye aye Lola," Vega answered as the left.

Alyssa shook her head as they left but as soon as they did she hit the comms. "Kelly?"

"Aye commander?" she replied from the overhead speakers.

"James is going to call you up in a minute needing quarters for our guest. Make sure she winds up in one of the common bunk areas, no private rooms."

"Aye commander," Kelly acknowledged.

Alyssa turned back to the doctor who had gone to Hilary's bed to check on her. "How's she doing?"

"Oh she'll be just fine," the silver haired woman kindly assured Alyssa. "The break was relatively clean with only a few fragments to fish out. The knitter got the regrowth started. She had a bad infection but we've hit that aggressively with antibiotics and I've started her on a nutrient and fluids drip to take care of the roughness of the last few days. She'll bounce back just fine."

"Seeing her whole family die in front of her is probably going to be a lot more of a lasting impact."

"That's a bit grim, even for you," Karin said as she noted a few of Hilary's vitals and went to straightening up her instruments from Aeian's check up. "But she didn't lose her whole family."

Alyssa followed Karin's eyes out into the mess hall. "No, she didn't."

"How much longer will she be with us?" Karin asked.

"I've kept Aria waiting about as long as I want to. We're going to head right for Omega. With Hilary's injuries and what happened with their family I don't think we need to be splitting up her and Joker just yet."

"Omega could be dangerous," Karin pointed out.

"There's no such thing as a safe place anymore. The Normandy's about as safe as it gets. Besides, we'll be transferring over to Aria's ships for the assault."

"We can't keep a teenaged girl on board for too long."

"We'll drop her off the next time we swing by the Citadel," Alyssa said. "Besides, this ship isn't exactly overflowing with positive role models."

"Oh I don't know," Karin said with a faint smile. "She could do worse."

"Commander," EDI contacted her from the comms.

Alyssa's eyes flicked back to where EDI was consoling Joker. It still took some getting used to the fact that the body hugging Joker right now was only part of her AI crewman. "What is it EDI?"

"I believe it may be beneficial for Jeff to be reminded that he has not lost everything. Contact with his sister could facilitate his healing."

"Agreed, the Doc's done with her so you can bring him in whenever you want EDI."

"Eiddie?"

Alyssa turned towards Hilary's bed where the small blonde girl was stirring. "Yes Ms. Moreau?" EDI replied.

"You're the Eiddie Jeff talks about?" she asked as she leaned up on one elbow. Karin was by her side quickly, "tsk"ing at her as she adjusted the bed to raise the head up.

"Be careful," Karin insisted as she wedged a pillow behind Hilary's back.

"It would be wise to follow Doctor Chakwas' instructions," EDI answered.

"But you're Eiddie?"

"I am."

Karin flashed Alyssa a worried look but Alyssa shrugged.

"Wait, how do you know what the Doctor is telling me?"

"My internal microphones are capable of hearing whatever occurs aboard the Normandy, aside from within private quarters unless summoned."

"Wait... what?" Hilary asked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"EDI, tell her your full name," Alyssa prompted.

"I am E.D.I. the Enhanced Defense Intelligence," she replied as the doors to the Medbay slid open and EDI helped Joker into the room.

"Wait...," he turned and looked at EDI in her face. "Did you just?"

"What's going on?" Hilary demanded. "This can't be right, you said her name was Eiddie."

"It is," EDI the android body said.

"You... you're a robot!"

Alyssa snorted as she tried to cover up her laughter. Joker shot Alyssa a glare as EDI straighted up.

"I am not a robot, I am an artificial intelligence. This platform is under my remote control but my primary blue box does not reside within it."

"Your what?" Hilary snapped. Her eyes flicked towards Joker. "You told me you loved her! She's a robot!"

"Artificial intelligence," EDI insisted.

Alyssa guffawed but got it back under control.

"Not helping!" Joker spat at her.

"You informed her that you loved me?" EDI said as she looked at Joker.

"Well... yeah... I thought you knew?"

"I did not read your correspondence with your sister, Jeff. That would violate your privacy."

He looked at Alyssa then back at EDI, "I thought..."

"You people wear your emotions on your sleeves, I don't have to read your mail to figure out when you're bent out of shape," Alyssa said defensively.

"You're in love with a computer?" Hilary asked.

"Ms. Moreau, I am an artificial intelligence," EDI said testily.

"You didn't tell me any of this," Hilary shot at her brother.

"I didn't know how to explain it and there are laws about AI's," he explained sheepishly.

"There are very few people who know about EDI outside this ship," Alyssa explained. "We all keep quiet about her so that no one raises a stink. She's absolutely indispensable."

Hilary looked back and forth between Joker and EDI before sighing and collapsing back into her bed. EDI helped to ease Joker closer to his sister. "Mom always said you were a strange one."

"Yeah, I guess so," Joker said as he reached down and took her hand. She squeezed it back and he winced.

Alyssa drifted back to the medbay doors but waited near them. She wasn't being a busybody so much as just worried about her helmsman and friend as well as his sister. Of course, with the upgrades to her body she could hear everything that happened in the compartment.

"They're gone," Hilary said quietly.

"I know."

"We missed you."

"I've been kind of busy," Joker said.

"We knew, we were proud of you, especially Dad."

Alyssa quietly activated the door, slipping out and letting them be alone.

VOV

Author's Notes

1) This chapter exists outside the current Interstitial Spaces progression. If I can make it this far one day it'll be integrated into the series proper.

2) This chapter is my attempt to kickstart my desire to write Mass Effect again after ME3 stomped all over it. I'm doing this by "fixing" what they did to Joker's sister, Joker, and Shepard. It was one of the bigger dick moves in a game full of dick moves. So technically this violates IS's original goal of not being a "fix fic". I'll let you know now that as far as ME3 goes this will be a 100% fix fic.

3) Just to remind everyone this story is about the asari in Huerta Memorial, the one on the left behind the reception desk getting therapy. You have to reload the level over and over to get the whole thing but that's what this is in response to.

4) Ok, just some regular math.

Earth is 93 million miles (roughly) from the sun. Light takes 8.33 minutes to travel from the sun to the Earth. Pluto, and consequently the Charon relay, are on average 39 AU from the sun. Light takes 325 minutes to reach Pluto from the sun or five and a half hours.

The main gun rounds from a dreadnaught in the mass effect universe are fired at 1.3% of light speed. So even a main gun round from a dreadnaught would require 423 hours to travel from the sun to the Charon relay. That's seventeen point six days. Now, being space, it's entirely possible that that ships in the Mass Effect could just accelerate and keep accelerating, potentially traveling faster than the round from a dreadnaught. Perhaps they aren't capable of anywhere near gun levels of acceleration so it takes them a day or two to surpass that speed, that's possible. A few things though, there's no indication anywhere that I can see of intra-system trips taking days, much less weeks or months. They seem to happen in a matter of hours, a day or so at most.

There's also the Normandy's stealth system, sinking the heat its engines generate rather than emitting it. Simply put, if the Normandy sinked all the heat generated that was required to accelerate it to 1% of lightspeed it would explode into a steam cloud of various metals and plastics long before getting there. Even if they used Mass Effect fields (which still require power to work but we'll ignore that for the moment) to lower the mass of the Normandy to 1% of what it is, still, steam cloud. The Normandy simply cannot travel at any significant fraction of the speed of light via normal Newtonian acceleration and still utilize it's stealth system. It would vaporize itself, literally.

So where does that leave us? Just at the conclusion that spacecraft in the Mass Effect universe apparently use their conventional FTL drives for intra-system travel. The Normandy could only use her stealth systems after arriving at a target planet or location.

I love math and physics. Feels good man.

Feedback: bsmartfanfic 


	9. Chapter 8: Lunch Date

Mass Effect 2: Interstitial Spaces

By: bsmart

Disclaimer: Rated R (or M depending on the site) for the good stuff, you've been warned. Currently its cursing and violence, we'll see where it goes from there. Mass Effect is owned by whoever owns Mass Effect.

OVO

Chapter 8: Lunch Date

OVO

Alyssa flopped back onto the bed in her cabin on the Normandy. Getting run over by a Krogan wasn't something you just walked off and some parts of her just plain hurt. It was a good hurt though, one she savored. Not the agony and pain inflicted on her in some Frankenstein-esque science experiment she had no control over but the dull ache of an injury she'd taken honestly, due to her own actions. Stupid, stupid actions though they were. As she stared up at the stars something one of her drill instructors had told her kept echoing in her mind, 'If it hurts that means you're still alive.'

'Still alive.' Alyssa snorted. If Cerberus was to be believed she'd been dead for two years. Considering that being starved of oxygen for four minutes or so led to brain death and she'd followed up suffocation with reentry she wasn't seeing how she could have been brought back to life. Obviously Cerberus was lying, she just wasn't sure why Joker was as well.

Alyssa sat up and walked towards her office, getting moving to do something rather than dwelling on a bunch of counter-productive thoughts she had no answers to at the moment. She picked up a few pieces of armor she'd laid on her desk to dry and set them aside.

After welcoming Mordin to the ship and sending him off with the bubbly Yeoman to get situated in his lab Alyssa had gone to the armory to try and clean what must have been two liters of krogan blood off her armor. Whatever coating had been put on it to keep it easy to clean obviously wasn't rated for the blood of a two legged space dinosaur because even a vigorous scrubbing had left a sticky smear of red across her chest plate. She'd finally fallen back on dunking the entire piece in a chemical and enzyme slurry usually reserved for stripping carbonized rifle components and even that hadn't done the trick. While most of the gunk was off it the chest plate still looked stained. At least the mimetic coating on it would cover up the staining when it activated.

Jacob had offered to do the cleaning for her but her snarling dismissal of his offer to let a "Cerberus goon handle my armor," had sent him off looking like a whipped puppy. So she'd cleaned it and was letting it air dry in her room, too paranoid to leave it where someone could mess with it. Their working relationship was off to a wonderful start.

Putting all that aside Alyssa turned to her terminal and activated it. She didn't really know where to start. She knew what her goal was, to find Liara, but she didn't know how to go about it. She doubted that Tali knew where Liara was but she opened up her e-mail and sent her a message asking anyways. She doubted that Timmy really didn't know where Liara was but she knew he wasn't going to tell her. She'd tried to look up some of her old crew but she ran into nothing but dead ends. She left messages with their individual consulates on the Citadel but that assumed they'd ever bother to check those consulates. Things were much easier when if she wanted to talk to them all she had to do was go down to the cargo bay.

She checked her own account with the Earth consulate but every search filter she could think of didn't tease out a message for her from Liara. She settled for downloading the entire pile of thousands of messages to sort through later and slumped back in her desk chair again.

The possibility existed the ship's computer was programmed to prevent her from finding anything useful and there wasn't anything she could do about that, at the moment. She pushed back from the desk and stared around her cabin. Her Cerberus cabin. On a Cerberus ship. On a Cerberus errand. Deep in the Terminus. Cut off from her friends. Cut off from her support. What hell was she doing here? Was this even her body?

Alyssa rubbed her temples and tried to focus. What the hell was she supposed to do? She had no clue where the Collectors were going to be next and until she got a lead from the Professor or from Timmy she had no way to attack them. The only thing she could do was...

…exactly what she was doing.

The urge to break something was overwhelming. "Yeoman Chambers?"

"Yes commander?" the young woman's chipper voice answered from the comms.

"Where did the exercise equipment we picked up at the Citadel get put?"

"The cargo bay ma'am, we set an area aside."

"Thank you yeoman."

"Whatever you need ma'am."

Maybe she could do one thing. She stripped off her duty blues and changed into an exercise tank-top and shorts before getting into the turbolift and heading for the cargo bay. The equipment was there, not really set up in any logical order but it was there. She'd worry about setting things up properly later. Right now she just needed to work some frustrations out.

OVO

"She's in the cargo bay right now."

"And what do you want me to do about it?"

Kelly rolled her eyes. "I want you to go down there and help her."

Jacob crossed his arms. "You're kidding me right? She could barely keep herself from shooting me when we had vorcha crawling all over us. If I go down there while she's trying to relax I don't think she'll be able to keep herself from twisting my damn head off."

"She's not really in a condition to be twisting anyone's head off right now," Kelly assured him.

"She bum rushed a Ymir and killed it with a grenade she shoved down it's neck. She did that while coming down off of enough narcotics to level a krogan."

"Jacob, please. She needs help and we need her. It has to start somewhere."

"You're gonna get me killed Chambers."

"Trust me on this, I know her."

"I bet she likes redheads."

"Just go workout with her."

OVO

Alyssa slowly let the stack of weights down. Her arms were trembling as she fought to hook the bar into the spurs on the rack and not let it fall right onto her neck. She pushed up, as hard as she could but it was a losing fight until a pair of dark skinned hands joined hers and helped set the bar back in place.

"It's not a good idea to lift free weights solo. Be a damned fool way to die."

Alyssa snorted, "Thanks," as she sat up.

"Forty kilos?" Jacob asked. He was wearing a pair of loose silver workout shorts and a similar colored tank top.

"Yeah," Alyssa grudgingly admitted.

"That's impressive for someone who hasn't been off a bed in two years," he said as he set up a pair of dumbbells with nearly as much weight on each as she was just bench pressing in total.

"I used to bench almost three times that."

"No doubt," Jacob said as he started to curl the heavy weights.

Alyssa sat down at the butterfly machine and after adjusting it got back to work. She tried to ignore Jacob and just focus on her workout. Still, Jacob's presence was an aggravation that just wouldn't go away. She had been dealing with being able to work with less than half the weights she had used to before whatever had happened to her. Only now she was doing it with an audience. Yeah, maybe it was impressive for someone to still be as fit as she was after two years on a table but it didn't make the embarrassment any easier to deal with.

They both kept working their ways through the machines arrayed in the bay until Alyssa was sitting down and getting ready to start doing curls with an embarrassing fifteen kilograms on each of them. She only managed to do two reps before Jacob was kneeling beside the bench. "You need to tuck your arm in a bit more. You're going to wind up putting too much strain on your elbow and twist something." Jacob reached out and guided her arm in closer to her body, lining up her joints. "Feel better?"

"Yeah, it does," she was forced to admit.

"Gotta be careful with free weights, too easy to do it wrong and do more damage than good."

"It's been a while," she had to admit. "Muscle memory is gone"

"Yeah, gotta be rough waking up like that."

Alyssa quietly chuckled. "Ya'll would know."

The exact meaning of her quip was lost on Jacob. "I saw you when they brought you in. The fact you're mobile is incredible."

"Yeah well, mobile ain't gonna cut it."

"True enough," Jacob said and the silence returned, but different. It wasn't as uncomfortable, still uncomfortable, but not as much and twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat, Alyssa headed back up to her cabin and it's shower.

OVO

"This is where Archangel is supposed to be?" Alyssa asked as she looked over the barricade's built around one particular building, a rather upscale, for Omega, apartment building. At least it had once been upscale. Now the gleaming white facade was marred by the impact of hundreds of rifle rounds, explosives, and the soot of fires, some still burning.

"According to Aria's sources... yeah," Jacob said.

"Sure, why not," Alyssa groaned.

Miranda looked about, "All three of Omega's merc groups are here. Eclipse, Blue Suns, Blood Pack, they're all here and all want him dead."

"Hey! You! Get lost!" a batarian Blue Suns merc yelled at them as he stalked up the stairs towards their perch. He looked them over and paused. "Wait, are you the new recruits?"

"Yeah, that's us," Alyssa said quickly.

"We'll you're not gonna get paid standing there nugget! Get moving."

"Sure, sure thing," Alyssa said in reply, walking slowly past the batarian. The alien looked them over and started to raise his hand when they didn't hustle but Alyssa walked past without paying him any mind.

The trio made their way through the throngs of mercenaries moving back and forth and inspite of the chaos she could sense the ebb and flow of a military operation in the offing. Surprisingly disorganized, inept, and amateurish, but preparations nonetheless. "Merc's," she groaned as they got closer and closer to the barricades around the building. Off to the left she saw a small aircar lot that had been cleared out and was being used for a gunship landing pad complete with a gunship that had its port engine open and had half a dozen people working on it all taking orders from a batarian. A nearby garage had a few dozen mechs in it.

The batarian dismissed his assistants for something and Alyssa glanced at Miranda, jerking her head towards the mechs. Miranda nodded slowly and took Jacob with her as Alyssa checked for anyone paying too much attention to her before disappearing behind the gunship. The batarian had his head buried in the engine as Alyssa approached.

"Yang?" the batarian asked. "Yang? Do something useful and give me that welder! If I don't get this gunship's barriers up and running Tarrak will have my ass."

Alyssa picked up the welder, a small forked device and hefted it, starting to smile as she did so. "Relax," she said happily as she slapped the batarian on the back. "You're working too hard."

The batarian's head popped out of the hatch he'd been leaning over into. "Wait, you're not Yang."

Alyssa smiled, "Nope," and shoved the fifteen centimeter tines of the welder through a thin, flexible portion of his armor and between his ribs before flicking it on. Thousands of volts and hundreds of amps sizzled through the batarian making his entire body go rigid for an instant before his body vibrated as he lost control of it, trying to scream but finding his lungs and mouth out of his control. She grabbed his load bearing harness on his armor and kept him from collapsing, instead dragging him behind a series of cargo crates as blood began to pour from his nose and his twitching body began to spasm less and less before he went still. A quick scanned confirmed he was dead before she flipped off the welder and went back to button up the engine of the gunship. She moved away quickly as Miranda and Jacob appeared out of the garage and joined up with her.

They followed the stream of new recruits headed towards the barricades and presumably Archangel.

"Why are they recruiting all these newbies?" Miranda asked.

"Cannon fodder." 

"For one man," Jacob asked.

"If he's gonna be on the team he'd better be that good," Alyssa confirmed.

They followed the mass until they got to the barricades and fell in as a turian in Blue Suns armor. "The plan is simple newbies!" he yelled. "You push the bridge. We'll support you with the gunship and the Eclipse mechs while the Blood Pack pushes from behind. If you're smart you'll move fast. If you're not, you don't get paid."

OVO

Alyssa had been careful to stay low on the run across the footbridge to the apartment. She kept at least one of the mercs between her Archangel and to her surprise no one seemed to notice or care. Miranda and Jacob followed her lead but the other mercs showed their own inexperience by staying upright, walking, firing like they were really trying to hit something. They blissfully wandered through the killing zone letting Archangel weed them out. Even with the cover fire the professional mercs were giving them the newbies were making it so easy on the sniper he was having no issue at all picking them off one at a time, or two at a time in the case of one rather impressive shot.

And yet for as good as he was he wasn't making a real effort to hit Alyssa, Miranda, or Jacob. The newbies and wannabes were falling left and right yet the closest he ever came to them was winging her barriers with a shot that depleted them a bit, but did no lasting damage. He'd managed to hold off three big mercenary groups for days, this wasn't the type of guy who missed very often. Something was up.

What that was would have to wait though as they got closer to the front of the small apartment complex and the moment their real allegiance showing itself approached. A few of them mercs ahead of them had made it to the cover of the complex and Alyssa could see a bomb laying off to one side with a number of dead mercs. The new arrivals were spreading out while another from before tried to get the bomb working.

"Light'em up!" Alyssa barked as she centered the crosshairs over the upper chest of the merc working on the bomb and pulled the trigger on her rifle. The big borderline antique boomed loudly and the merc's cheap surplus barriers collapsed the moment the first rice grain sized bit of metal slammed into them. The first round was slowed by taking down the barriers but the second wasn't and the lightweight ceramic plate guarding the man's chest shattered under the impact as the rounds tore into him and cast blood, bone, and ruined bits or armor all over the bomb he had been crouched over. She shifted targets and ended another merc's life as Miranda and Jacob took care of dispatching their own targets. "Clear."

"Clear," both Cerberus operatives echoed.

"Let's get in there, we need to extract before they realize what's going on."

The foyer of the apartment building had been decorated by Sir Isaac Netwon as bits of mercs that had made it this far were littered all over the place. Blood streaks laced the floor, all pointing back towards a corner of the building where Archangel had taken to dumping their mortal remains. The lifts were out of order, as evidenced by the doors that had been blown outwards by some explosives so they opted for the stairs, taking them two at a time until they reached the third floor where Archangel was supposed to be.

Alyssa returned her rifle to her back and drew her submachine guns because of the tight quarters as they worked their way down the halls until the found the door at the end standing wide open. Inside was a large family room with a window, or the remains of a window frame looking out over the bridge that connected this apartment to the rest of Omega and standing at that window was a single turian in bright blue armor.

The turian took a shot at someone below before beginning to turn towards them. "You must be getting slow in your old age, two years ago I never would have even been able to hit you the first time," a familiar gravelly voice said as the turian pulled his helmet off.

"Garrus!" Alyssa yelled as she holstered her weapons and grabbed the turian in a bear hug. "You're Archangel?"

Garrus coughed, "That's the name they gave me but uh, it's just Garrus with us Shepard. Where have you been?"

"It's complicated," Alyssa said.

Garrus' eyes wandered over Miranda and Jacob. "I can see."

"So how did you get your ass hanging out this far?"

"Well you kill enough of their men and blow up enough of their stuff and even mercenaries will eventually take notice."

"How'd you get cornered in here?"

Garrus glanced back further into the apartment and Alyssa saw a row of bodies covered in sheets. "Someone sold us out."

"Damn," Alyssa sighed.

"He took off and left us here. They surrounded us and started attacking before we even knew what was going on. Most of my team died without even getting a shot off but the survivors and I drove them off. Didn't matter. We were surrounded and most of the survivors had been wounded. They've been whittling us down ever since. It's just been me for the last few days trying to send a few more of these bastards to their respective afterlives before they got me."

"Well the cavalry is here, so let's bug out," Alyssa said.

"Maybe you missed the part where they have us surrounded," Garrus drawled, "but it's kind of important."

"I didn't miss it, I just don't care," Alyssa said with a smirk.

"Well, at least the attitude's the same."

"What's the situation, beyond the obvious?"

"Well I assume since you came through with the cannon fodder you're familiar with who's on the other side. Blue Suns and Eclipse have been handling bottling me up topside. The Blood Pack is moving through the lower levels. I've barricaded them down there and added a few of my own surprises. It's slowed the Blood Pack down but the main body's of the merc groups have been holding back for the last day or so."

"Probably hoping the bomb we ran into down stairs would take care of the job."

Garrus chuckled, "Getting that over here cost them a lot of men," he reached into one of the many pouches that adorned his armor, "and once they did I took the liberty of making sure it was pointless." He showed Alyssa a circuit board before tucking it away.

"Detonator?"

Garrus gave one emphatic nod. "Without it its as dangerous as Wrex was with a sniper rifle."

Alyssa glanced out the window and smirked. "Jacob, how far could you toss that bomb?"

"By hand, maybe a couple feet, with my biotics? Just tell me where you want it."

"Well then, I've got a plan," Alyssa said with a smirk.

"I think I was less nervous before you showed up and I was just facing certain death," Garrus deadpanned.

OVO

"Are you sure about this?" Miranda yelled as another line of automatic fire chewed away at the corner of the ferrocrete wall she was crouched behind.

"Eh, fifty fifty," Alyssa said as she snapped off a shot then ducked back down.

"What?!"

"I kid, I kid, sixty forty."

Miranda glared at her before leaning around the corner and rattling off a burst with her submachine gun.

"It all depends on how good their demolitions guy is. If he was an amateur he'd try to put in just enough to do the job. If he was a pro he wouldn't want to have to do it twice and would have just put in triple what he needed. Let's hope they didn't get cheap."

"Ready?" she asked over her comm channel.

Miranda and Jacob both confirmed they were before Garrus cut in. "You need to hurry it up. Eclipse managed to put down the last of your little presents and they've got a couple of Ymir's inbound."

"Then let's wait for them to show," Alyssa said as more chips of ferrocrete rained down around them. What the merc's cannon fodder lacked in accuracy they made up in enthusiasm. "I thought you sabotaged them?"

"We did," Miranda snapped. "But half of them had techs crawling all over them so it wasn't like we could walk up and start reprogramming them."

"What's happened to the galaxy when you can't even count on mercs to not have their shit together," Alyssa whined.

"We killed all the sloppy ones," Garrus said.

"Oops. Well no good deed goes unpunished."

"Somedays you almost sound like a turian."

"When you two are done kissing and making up perhaps you'd like to join us?" Miranda snarled as she grabbed one of the mercs on the wall and yanked his rifle away hard enough to drag him with it and over into the chasm beside the bridge.

"Fine Mom," Alyssa shot back as the mercs opened up the barricade, and three Ymir mechs came stomping through in their slow deliberate place. "Get ready."

"This mantis is purely anti-personnel Shepard, I can't do anything about heavy armor with it. This had better work."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Alyssa muttered. Whereas the assault rifles of the mercs had ground away at the ferrocrete of their cover the heavier guns of the Ymir's took big ragged chunks out of it. Using their mechs as cover Eclipse engineers were starting to pour out of the gate followed by Blue Suns troops as well. "Ready Jacob?"

"Whenever you are Shepard."

"Wait for it," she intoned. A meter down the wall one of the Ymir's shots blew a hole through the ferrocrete. One passed through the entrance to the apartments and blew a couch in two. The Eclipse engineers were crowding up around the Ymir's to keep out of Garrus' view as he picked them off with shocking speed and accuracy any time the exposed themselves but it was getting harder to do as more and more guns were turned on the building. "Do it!"

Jacob stepped out of cover with his hands glowing blue from his biotics. From behind him the bomb came around and he hurled it towards the advancing mercs with a strangled yell of exertion.

The Ymir's saw the incoming device and deduced it was hostile based off purely where it had come from but none of the three were fast enough to hit it. They were designed for heavy assault, not rapid precision shooting. Their heavy cannons barked anyways hoping they might get lucky but failing and letting the bioticly propelled canister smashing into the ferrocrete at their feet.

"Got ya," Garrus said confidently as he mashed down on the jury-rigged detonator.

The bomb exploded with enough force to knock everyone in sight of it flat on their asses. The lead Ymir simply disappeared in the bomb's flash, the few recognizable bits of it being hurled through the air along with the entire center span of the bridge which had been reduced to rubble, none larger than a wastebin. The remaining two Ymir's were hurled from either side of the bridge in several pieces surrounded with a halo of blue and gold bodies as the relatively unprotected sapients that had been crowded around them were reduced to shreds of armor and organic jelly.

The bridge itself bounced upwards from the force of the blast, the usually solid ferrocrete bowing upwards before coming back down. With no central support to divide the load both unsupported sides of the bridge kept on falling, crackling and ripping the ferrocrete foundations on either side and stretching the rebar reinforcement like so much pasta before it finally snapped.

Alyssa coughed and brushed off bits of bridge, Ymir, and mercenary as she clambered back to her feet. "Anyone dead?"

"Not for lack of trying," Jacob groaned.

"Alright, let's move. They won't stay stupid forever."

"You're clear," Garrus reported. "They're still picking themselves up after that."

"Good let's..." Alyssa started to say as a mechanical whine and the roar of exhaust jets abruptly filled the air.

"Damn you Archangel!" a voice boomed from the gunship's loudspeakers as it shot up into view. Alyssa dove for cover as it's autocannon ripped apart the front of the apartment complex. As powerful as the Ymir's cannon but firing a dozen times faster the column she found wouldn't last long and she followed Jacob and Miranda as the ran into the foyer. Stray shots reduced the furniture around them to splinters that bounced off their barriers but the gunner wasn't aiming, just spraying and hoping for hits.

They made it to the stairs and Alyssa pointed deeper into the building where the underground access was. "Hold here, I'll grab Garrus," she ordered. The walls were thick enough here that they would be protected from the gunship's wild firing. She hit the stairs and took them two and three at a time as she bounded up. "Garrus we're clear! Get out of there!" Alyssa ordered as she turned the corner to make it to the apartment where he'd hole'd up.

"Falling back," Garrus replied calmly. "I think we pissed him off."

Alyssa was five meters from the door to the apartment when it exploded outward, showering her in splinters. Her barriers absorbed the worst of it but she still felt one of the bits of metal from it dig into her neck as she was picked up and bodily thrown down the hall. Her shoulder collided with one of the decorative columns that lined the hall and she spun to the floor, dazed and her ears ringing.

She picked herself up off the floor and found her rifle nearby. As she staggered to her feet as she started to move towards the apartment whose doorway was now shrouded in smoke with flames starting to dance on anything flammable. "Garrus?" she called towards the apartment as she stumbled in. The apartment itself was in shambles, blown apart by what she assumed to be rocket fire. There was nothing recognizable of it left aside from a prone blue form.

"Shepard! What's going on! Answer me!" Miranda yelled at her over the comms but the whine of the gunship silenced any response that Alyssa would have had. She dove for cover behind what was left of a planter as the gunship returned.

"Not so big now!" boomed the voice from the gunship. It chuckled as it slowly paced along the front of the building. Alyssa worried it might decide to finish the job. Her barriers had recharged but they were designed to stop anti-personnel rounds, not anti-armor missiles. "If there's anything left of you come out and die with a little dignity," the same voice yelled but without the speaker back up. Alyssa risked leaning over to take a quick look and saw that a batarian in a Blue Suns uniform was at the gunship's troop compartment door with it open and him looking out. He was holding an assault rifle and a huge grin on his face as he surveyed the wreckage of the apartment.

Alyssa flicked a switch and deployed her rifle's bipod as she rose into a crouch. She dropped the bipod onto the lip at the far side of the planter through the ruined remains of the plants that had been in it and steadied it as she took aim. Her movement hadn't gone unnoticed but she knew where to aim before hand and the batarian didn't. He was still bringing his rifle up as her's was already spitting rice grain sized slivers of metal. Whatever barriers the gunship had left after her meddling faltered immediately and in the face of a medium machine gun's fire the batarian's did shortly after without him ever getting off a shot. His mangled, headless corpse was still tumbling over the side as she drug her point of aim up into the gunship's engines and pulverized them with her rifle. To his credit the pilot immediately pulled away from the source of the fire but as low as he was it was pointless. He lost all thrust to port and his reflexive slide to starboard ended as the engines on that side reversed the slide and slammed the gunship into the side of the apartment complex near street level before it tumbled down into the chasm, burning and mangled beyond recognition.

"Shepard!" Miranda screamed.

"Get up here, that gunship rocketed the apartment, Garrus is down!"

Alyssa scrambled towards Garrus on her hands and knees, slipping and sliding on the layer of broken glass and pulverized apartment that littered the floor. She skidded to a halt at his side and it took all she had not to freeze at the sight of him. His armor had taken the brunt of the impact but the right side was peppered with debris and shrapnel. The color of the armor on that side had been sliced open and peeled back and whatever had done that had not been satisfied with the armor, going on to peel back a portion of his face. Thick blood was spurting forth from wounds on his neck.

She scrambled for her own medkit, pulling out medi-gel patches and other battlefield medicines before recoiling when she remembered his body chemistry. "Shit!"

Miranda gasped as she got close. "He's still alive?"

"Not for long. I don't have a dextro med-kit," she growled as she grabbed him by the side and rolled him over. "Check him, he has to have one on him."

Miranda reached behind him, hunting through some of the many pouches that adorned his armor before shouting, "Got it!" She flipped the pouch onto his chest, unrolling it.

Alyssa snatched a simple compression bandage from her own medkit and used it to mop the blood off the side of his face before peeling off the backing of one of Garrus' medi-gel patches, which had emblazoned on it in big letters, "Dextro-Amino Acid Users ONLY," and used it to cover the bigger wounds on his neck. The little patch hissed as it dispensed it's witch's brew of chemicals.

Miranda was busy using another patch on the wounds on his shoulder as Alyssa returned to the med-kit pulling out several small ampules of medicine. "Fuck! They're all in turian!"

"Give'em to me," Miranda said not waiting for Alyssa to hand them over but just snatched them out of her hand. Her eyes darted over the labels before tossing two of them back onto Garrus' chest before taking the other three and finding a small hatch on the upper chest of his armor. She popped it open and in quick succession jammed the ampules into a small receptacle hidden beneath it. "Whole body injection system. Turians are anal-retentive about everything."

"Whatever you two are doing you need to hurry it up!" Jacob yelled. "Whatever the turian did in the tunnels the Blood Pack are getting through it. We don't have much longer."

"We gotta move him," Alyssa said.

"Agreed," Miranda replied. "But it's gotta be you. Mine and Jacob's skinsuits don't have the kind of augmentations your armor does."

"That's why you don't wear a catsuit to a gunfight," Alyssa griped.

"Too late!" Jacob called from below. "Tunnels are crawling with Vorcha."

"Get down there and help him hold them off," Alyssa ordered. "I'll stash him and come help in a second."

Miranda looked back and forth between the prone turian and Alyssa before nodding and jogging off. Through the comms she heard Miranda contact the Normandy. "Normandy, ground team. Archangel is down. We're cut off and need extract. We need a doctor with turian meds ASAP."

"Understood," EDI replied.

Alyssa grabbed the collar of Garrus' armor and hauled him up onto her shoulders. Her armor's servo's took much of the weight but it was still taxing to pick up the turian and his considerable armor. "What's going on down there?"

"We've got vorcha boiling up out of the underground," Jacob reported. "There might have been a way out before but there isn't now. We've shut the last set of doors leading in here but they've got explosives and they aren't afraid to use them."

She picked her way down the stairs, all too aware of the completely dead weight of Garrus on her back. She reached the ground level and saw Miranda and Jacob covering the main door that led down into the sewers and she headed for the wrecked front of the building, depositing Garrus off to one side, hidden between some walls and furniture. She was just turning around when the door Jacob and Miranda were guarding exploded inward.

"Find him! I want his head!" a voice bellowed from down the corridor as a swarm of vorcha came piling through the ragged hole the explosives had left before the dust and debris even settled. Scrambling like wild animals the vorcha came until Jacob's biotics grabbed much of the debris in the ruined doorway and hurled it back at them, pelting them with a shotgun blast of ruined ferrocrete.

Jacob and Miranda started to fire into the mass of onrushing vorcha but the aliens didn't care. They just crawled over the dead or dying bodies of their comrades in a single minded rush to get to them. Jacob and Miranda's biotics had some effect but the shear number of vorcha was already threatening to overrun them as Alyssa dropped to a crouch behind another heavy planter. She flicked one of the controls on her trigger group and her rifle's bipod deployed. A relic from it's past as a squad level support weapon she'd never removed the bipod specifically because of situations like this. With the rifle braced on the planter she laid her crosshairs over the entrance to the door and let fly, three and five round bursts carefully timed to fill the opening with mass driver rounds and make it impossible to get through. Impossible if the people being suppressed cared about casualties.

Vorcha don't.

Alyssa, Miranda, and Jacob all kept firing into the opening but the vorcha were pushing it. Each one would gain another half meter before being cut down. The only real saving grace was that each body went towards clogging the door. "Get in there and get him!" the voice bellowed again as another wave of attackers was cut down. Alyssa smiled evilly as the next wave of vorcha got hung upon each other as they tried to push through and one went down as the body of one of its comrades rolled over and caught it's foot, twisting it to the ground. He was trying to get up when Alyssa sent most of a burst into his skull. She frowned, two rounds out of five hitting his head at barely fifteen meters was way off where she should have been.

She had no time to ponder her "horrifying" inaccuracy as a boiling wall of flame erupted through the doorway. The churning gout of fire mushroomed out and filled every void in front of it sending Miranda and Jacob running out of the way with flames licking at their heels. Through the waves of heat starting to fill the room Alyssa could make out the shape of a Vorcha with a large tank on it's back picking it's way through the bodies. She snatched a grenade from her belt and thumbed the activator but held it, counting off three in her head before hurling it towards the body clogged doorway and ducking behind the planter.

The grenade's detonation shook the apartment block but there was no secondary. When she peeked over ferrocrete planter the flames were gone, a bloodied and pulped vorcha was laying in the doorway with the tank on his back hissing and sputtering where it had been perforated by shrapnel. Thick smoke and ferrocrete dust filled the portal but behind it more vorcha were sprawled where the grenade had laid them out. A smile was starting to grace her face when a huge dark form started to charge through the smoke. "I'll do it myself!"

The krogan was huge even by the standards of his race. His armor was blood red and thick, covering his entire body and even portions of his neck and upper head. The Bloodpack symbol was emblazoned on his shoulders and he was hefting a large shotgun. Off his back were the beefy turrets of krogan biotic amps and over his craggy scarred face Alyssa could see the hazy purple glow of a biotic barrier.

"Archangel!" he bellowed. "Get out here and die already!"

"Miranda, fry him," Alyssa snapped. "Jacob, slow him down." She flipped the bipod closed and began to rise up to get his attention, intentionally bringing herself up into his line of sight.

"You're not..." the Krogan started to say but Alyssa didn't wait for him to talk, opening up on him with her rifle as soon as the crackling surge of Miranda's attack tried to overload his barriers and shields. Miranda's technological wizardry wasn't enough to drop his protections, one of the benefits of being a two legged dinosaur was that he could carry a much, much larger power supply than any human, but it did soften him up. As her rifle jackhammered against her shoulder she saw her shots clawing at his barriers and shields with some of them getting through to dig at the crimson armor over his body.

The Krogan roared and turned fully towards her, starting to charge her until Jacob grabbed a nearby couch and hurled it at him. The giant alien didn't get to his size by being slow though and he saw it coming, turing and smashing the piece of furniture in midair with his snub-nosed shotgun. "Where's Archangel?!" he roared as he fired a blast at Jacob but the human dodged out of the way as the shot splintered a bench behind him. Jacob and Miranda pelted his barriers with their submachine guns but Alyssa got his attention back on her.

"You're too late," Alyssa called. "He's already gone."

The Krogan snarled inarticulately as he dropped his shoulder and bull rushed her. Miranda shocked his barriers again and Jacob shoved a chair in his way but neither slowed him down. Alyssa's heavy rifle fire made his shields finally flicker and die but he was upon her, not bothering to fire his weapon but just bashing her rifle barrel aside with his shotgun before he brought his other fist around into her chest, punching her and sending her tumbling over a chair behind her. "Then you get to die first!"

Alyssa gasped as she struggled back to her feet. The krogan's punch had threatened to knock the wind out of her even through armor. She drew her shotgun and brought it up but the krogan was already on her. There was a glowing blade under his shotgun and he thrust it towards her face. She threw her gun in front of her and grimaced as the blade shoved through the metal and composite body of her weapon. Then he fired and sprayed her with bits of weapon and sent a burning lance of pain through her shoulder. He pushed again, trying to power through and spear her in the face but Jacob hit him in the side with a piece of debris and Alyssa twisted her own gun snatching the shotgun from the krogan's hands as he staggered from Jacob's hit. She frantically hunted for the grip and found it but at the same time the krogan found her and with one hand lifted her by the collar of her armor into the air between himself and Jacob and Miranda. Alyssa gasped as something on her shoulder exploded, sending more pain lancing through her arm and showering her face with bits of armor shell and ceramics. "Damn humans!" he snarled as he drew back his other hand into a fist getting read to dispatch her but Alyssa acted fast, whipping the shotgun around into his face and pulling the trigger and mashing every button she could hit.

"Ughaaaaaahhhhh!" the Krogan roared as the shotgun boomed centimeters from his face and the glowing blade flash formed into his lower jaw. Thick blood and viscera splashed across Alyssa's face and the krogan dropped her, grasping at his ruined face with both hands. As she hit the floor her stolen shotgun spun out of her grasp and clattered across the floor.

"Shepard, get clear!" Miranda yelled at her.

Out of the corner of her eye Alyssa saw something wrapped in a biotic blue glow hurtling across the room and she pushed herself back looking for some cover but all she could see was an overturned coffee table. She dove behind it just as the body of the vorcha with the still hissing tank on his back hit the agonized krogan and a burst of Miranda's submachine gun detonated the flammable container.

Alyssa was tucking into a protective ball when the expanding fireball of the explosion and the resulting fragments started to bounce of the purple glowing wall of a biotic bubble around her. The explosion rattled the building and bits of debris bounced around for a few more moments before the bubble dissipated and Alyssa clambered back to her feet. She saw the residual glow around Miranda's hands as she and Jacob looked her over. "Thanks," Alyssa said.

"Of course," Miranda replied nonchalantly.

Alyssa glanced back at the blackened and scarred blast point where the krogan was now lying in several pieces. "I need to start packing a Cain," she muttered.

"EDI, what's the ETA on our extraction?" Miranda asked.

"Thirty seconds."

"Let's get Garrus and get out of here," Alyssa said as she went to retrieve her weapons. Her rifle was in relatively decent condition but her shotgun was a total loss, stabbed through with a omni-bayonet, blasted by the krogan's shotgun, and then scrambled by the fuel tank explosion. She dejectedly shoved the remains into a pouch on her hip as she caught a glimpse of the krogan's shotgun. It looked to have weathered the abuse better and she took it with her as she jogged over to where Garrus was laying with Miranda over him.

"He's stable," Miranda reported. She looked up at Alyssa, "And I suppose you are since you're moving."

Alyssa twisted her neck to look down at her shoulder and shrugged, instantly regretting it but trying not to show it.

"We'll get him in the shuttle," Jacob said as he lifted one side of Garrus' body and Miranda got on the other. Alyssa didn't argue with them instead drawing one of her submachine guns and holding it in her off hand, away from her wounded shoulder. The three of them stayed out of view, near the bridge entrance until one of the Normandy's shuttles swooped down and settled into a hover next to the ruined edge of the bridge. The side door whined as it swung open and one of the ship's crewmen urged them on as another took a door gun on the other side and started to pepper the mostly empty barrier on the other side of the chasm with heavy mass driver fire. Miranda and Jacob got Garrus aboard and onto a stretcher where Dr. Chakwas was waiting for him.

"Garrus," she said softly as she knelt beside the prone turian and started to work. An orderly knelt with her taking her orders as they fussed over the him.

Alyssa forced herself to back off and let them work, flopping back into a seat and pounding on the cockpit door frame with her fist. "Get us out of here."

OVO

Author's Notes

Feedback: bsmartfanfic  or  .com

1) I am always looking for proofreaders. If you're interested just let me know. Before you volunteer though be aware that I expect more than, "Looks good." If that's all you've got you won't be a proofreader long. I need grammar, spelling, sentence structure, all that stuff criticised on top of discussions about themes, ideas, and the overall plot.


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